ocket= 
oney 



Myka 
v. 

NORYS 




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Brocket* 
/Ifoonq? 



BY 



MYRA V. NORYS. 









THE FEATHER LIBRARY, 

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY AT WASHINGTON, D. C, 

BY 

GEORGE E. HOWARD & CO. 

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE $2.00 A YEAR. VOL. I, NO. 4, OCTOBER, 1899. 

Entered at the Post Office at Washing-ton, D. C, 
as second-class mail matter. 



^F4%7 



Vi 



O 



47659 

COPYRIGHTED AND PRINTED 
BY 

GEORGE E. HOWARD & CO., 
Washington, D. C. 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




SECOND COPY, 






I 



CONTENTS. 



Women — Fowls — Money . . . . .11 

How Much Capital ?..... 19 

Choosing- a I^ine of Work . . . . .26 

The Breed That Wins ..... 32 

Artificial and Natural Incubation . . . .40 

Satisfactory Coops and Brooders ... 47 

Mothering- Chicks . . . . . .56 

The First Season's Work .... 62 

The First Season With Fancy Poultry . . .69 

Confinement or Freedom . . . . 78 

The First Poultry-House . . . . .87 

Feeding for Eggs ...... 98 

The Embryo Chick at Testing Time . . .107 

Ducks and Geese ...... 117 

Turkeys for Pocket-Money . . . . .128 

Squabs for Pocket-Money .... 138 

Pocket-Money Possibilities ..... 147 

Pocket-Money Pointers ... . . . 152 

Supplementary Food Supplies .... 159 

The Possible Value of Caponizing . . . 167 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Frontispiece;. 
13 



White Leghorns .... 

Barred Plymouth Rock Male 

White Wyandots .... 

Light Brahmas . . . . 

Brown Leghorn Male . . . 

Cheap and Successful Home-Made Brooder 

One Woman's Brooder Shelter . 

A Good Coop ..... 

White Langshan Male 

Buff Cochin Female .... 

Pair Buff Leghorns 

Ivight Brahma Male .... 

Fig. 1. Nests. Fig. 2. Roosting Ladder 

Pair Silver Spangled Hamburgs 

The Poultry-House One Woman Finds Good With 

Scratching-Shed Attached- .... 

A House Which Gives Good Results 

A Modified Scratching-Shed House 

Black Minorca Male ...... 

A Strong ~Egg — A Weak or Imperfectly Fertilized 

Lgg— A Stale Lgg— The Air Space on the 16th 

Day 
Pair Buff Orpingtons 
Pekin Ducks 
Pair Lmbden Geese 
Bronze Turkeys 
Peeper, One Day Old . 
Squeakers, Ten Days Old 
Squealers, Three Weeks Old 
Homing Pigeons 
Pair African Geese 
Pair White Wyandots 



23 
33 

43 
48 
SO 
52 
53 
63 
73 
83 
91 
93 

95 

97 

100 

103 



108 
113 
119 
125 
135 
139 
139 
140 
145 
155 
165 



WOMEN—FOWLS— MONEY. 



z^fc^HK women and the fowls can make the money, 
/ \ plenty of it! But some women, as well as men, 
^^i^ grow into the poultry business, some go into 
it, and some tumble into it headlong. Very 
naturally, the last make a very flat failure of it. It is 
a business dealing with life; and one who attempts 
to handle living things, does it at an extreme risk, if 
she does not know well the material with which she 
works. There must be either a natural, almost spon- 
taneous growth into this knowledge, or else one must 
grow into it deliberately, by placing herself in the way 
of such growth. If there is no available school but 
the school of experience, that school we must enter, 
and its oft -repeated lessons we must learn. 

These words are addressed especially to women, by 
one who has had a lifelong experience among poul- 
try. A leading poultry paper in this country affirms 
that there is no difference between men and women, 
so far as poultry is concerned; and that Women's 
Poultry Departments and Special Words for Women 
are all nonsense. It ignores the admitted fact that 
women are far better fitted to care for fowls than 
men are, and it has never had cause to consider, (be- 
cause edited by a man,) that women have a continual, 
crying need for pocket-money, such as never, even in 
short times, attacks man. Since men too often de- 



12 

spise poultry as a means of livelihood, and will none 
of it as a pocket -filler for minor needs, why should it 
not be counted as especially belonging to women, par- 
ticularly when we consider that the women are act- 
ually now and all the time, doing most of the work 
of poultry rearing the whole world around? 

Men and women alike are subject to handicaps in 
any race they may attempt to run. Their hindrances 
differ, but all have them; if, in a literal race, the 
handicap makes money odds, why do we not have 
sense enough to see that it makes a cash difference 
everywhere? "Lack of knowledge and experience in 
any business is a weighty handicap, one which surely 
means lagging in the race until such time as it can be 
thrown off. Allow for this, then, when considering 
whether you can make poultry pay. You can not, 
without schooling; consider well the character and 
cost of this training, and do not whine if you pay for 
it in dead chicks, roupy hens, and empty egg basket, 
and the like. Money that doesn't come in isn't quite 
so bad as money that actually goes out, is it? 

The care of fowls is often offered as a cure for in- 
valid women; cheap, easy — yes, even paying — possi- 
bly it may prove all these ; in numerous cases it has 
done so, but the fact remains that invalidism is a 
handicap that must receive more or less allowance 
according to its hold upon the physique of the worker. 
I know one person who is looking to poultry as a 
means of livelihood, whose sight is very much im- 
paired. Work with poultry has many points of ad- 
vantage for such an one, but the lack of an eagle eye 
is none the less a serious handicap, and must stand 
in the way of highest success. 

Dislike of detail is also a serious hindrance to sue- 




BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCK MALE}. 



15 

cess in a work made up entirely, as this is, of detail 
upon detail. One may command the natural bent by 
practising- strict attention to detail, and succeed; but 
this, also, is a handicap, and must receive attention. 
Luckily, women usually revel in detail, and are thus 
especially fitted for poultry raisers. 

Conversely, knowledge of the work to be undertaken, 
good health, perfect sight, and a natural habit of at- 
tention to small matters are good qualifications for 
the worker among fowls of every sort. Marked 
ability in any direction tells strongly here, and with 
such as have this ability it becomes merely a question 
as to whether they can make more money by joining 
their forces with the hens, or investing them in some 
other line of work. It rests, always, upon "me and 
the hens" to secure the income by a union of forces; 
and be you sure the hens will do their part, every 
time. A deep interest in the work to be attempted is 
a very necessary qualification. This interest may be 
in making money, or in the fowls themselves, or in 
both. But, other things being equal, a deep interest 
in living things ma3' be considered one of the most 
helpful qualifications of the would-be poultry raiser. 
This interest women are more likely to possess than 
are men. Franklin Dye, of New Jersey, is fond of 
saying, "Weak life demands patient care." This is 
his idea as to the real reason for the supreme success 
of women in work which is full of detail, and which 
includes as a frequent feature the rearing of new-born 
life. - Is he not pretty nearly right? 

Still another qualification for entry upon this special 
work, lies in the ability to command the situation of 
the poultry plant, which, be it large or small, may 
bear the name of " Chicken ville." (Indeed, the poul- 



16 

try department at one of our State Experiment Sta- 
tions is known thus.) If this little hamlet of Chick - 
enville^is already located, so that its situation can not 
be changed, or improved upon, let this one point be a 
decisive one. If it is not suitable to the purpose, if 
hopelessly low and wet, don't try to enlarge it into a 
big village, or a city. Let poultry alone, before you 
get to the point where you will wish you had never 
heard of a chicken. All the money in the poultry 
business under such circumstances is likely to be the 
money that is put into it; little, or none will come 
out, in the long run. If the one worst enemy of poul- 
try, under artificial conditions, be not dampness, I do 
not know what it is. You can get almost every dis- 
ease into your flocks by keeping them in damp, ill - 
ventilated quarters, and with disease well settled 
among them, life becomes one long misery, both for 
you and them. 

The question of markets is an important one. With- 
out a market within such distance as not to eat up the 
profits in reaching it, the question as to poultry pay- 
ing is not an open one; it does not pay in such case. 
No matter how many poultry writers and poultry 
editors may asseverate that there is a mine of wealth in 
poultry, do not you take it as ''cash" till you know 
the markets open to you. If you can select }^our loca- 
tion, poultry will pay, no matter what branch }^ou take 
up, when you do your fair share of the work. Your 
business is to furnish brains, knowledge, market, what- 
ever is needed to make the combination between you 
and the fowls complete. The good, Summer markets 
along our eastern coast are a thing to look at. They 
furnish a fine, paying demand just when eggs are usu- 
ally cheap, and when they are most plentiful. But* 



17 

consider, too, that this demand drops to much below 
average as soon as the " Summer people " flit away to 
their homes. If also near a good city market which 
will take the Winter eggs, the place near by a Summer 
town is almost ideal. Mining towns, manufacturing 
towns, fancy groceries in the largest cities furnish most 
of the other high -price demands of the country. Con- 
sider that the best market for your wares will be open 
to them only when you can furnish that which others 
can not, of quality which others can not reach, or at a 
time when others can not furnish them. Brains are the 
important factor at every turn. 

When we look at the marriages which women make, 
we are ready to believe that they do, as is often said, 
take their risks first, and consider afterward. But in 
so important a matter as poultry rearing for profit, this 
will not do. Perhaps women do not marry "for 
profit," but pocket-money poultry must be kept at a 
profit, or let alone. Will you take the risks? They 
are many, and as the business enlarges, they are great. 
Dare you take them? or have you special means of re- 
ducing them to a minimum? or will you keep your in- 
vestments within such bounds that the possible loss of 
the greater part of your flock will not bankrupt you? 
There is disease, w T hich may take - all; there are biped 
thieves, who may take the choicest; there are "var- 
mints," which will show no favor, even to a $50 speci- 
men; there is fire, which may swallow, not only your 
flock, but your fold, and your factory, if you have a 
' ' factory ' ' in which chicks are manufactured from eggs 
supplied. Granted that you have all the qualifications 
before stipulated for, there may not be too great risks 
here for you, because you will have forstalled the major 
part of them. But while you are human, you will 



18 

sometimes be careless, and there will be risk. And, 
while you are a women, you will take a little more 
risk than a man would in your place. Not big, money 
risks, possibly, but careless risks. 

If the big- money in poultry has tempted you to plan 
money -making schemes in this connection, let one who 
knows the road urge you to go no further on in it till 
you have definitely decided, according to the best light 
given you, whether you handicaps, your qualifications, 
your chances for paying markets, and your attitude to- 
ward risks warrant you in advancing. Under many 
circumstances, you can save more money at this point 
than at any future time. In other words, you may get 
more money out of poultry by putting none in, than in 
any other way. By no means, however, think of me 
as running down the poultry business, whether con- 
ducted on a large, or a small scale. I believe in it 
most thoroughly, because I know that it pays. It pays 
in ordinarily careful hands, in a small way — pays ex- 
cellent returns ; it pays better with those who are well 
posted, careful, shrewd; it pays almost like a bonanza 
mine, the few who have sifted its open secrets to the 
bottom, and who have pitted themselves and their birds 
together against all competition. But, because the 
human factor is so large, the best payment does not 
come to the one who enlarges much beyond the bounds 
of his (her) own capacity. If you have not too great 
handicaps, if you have the right qualifications, good 
markets, not too great a disposition to take risks, poul- 
try will pay you. Go ahead, and earn that much- 
desired pocket-money. 



HOW MUCH CAPITAL? 



^rtC UCH oftener with women than with men, 
^■l^k the question as to capital will be : " What 
dL H|%/ is the very least I can get along with?" or 
How can I get a start without any capi - 
tal?" Now, even one old hen on hand is, in one sense, 
capital. It is possible, according to an old story, to 
start without any capital except " cheek," by borrow- 
ing an old hen of one neighbor, a setting of eggs from 
a second, and keeping the hen long enough to pay back 
the eggs borrowed, out of those which she may lay! 
It is a question, however, whether this is not too slow 
a start, even were it wholly admirable in other ways. 
If there really is money in poultry, why waste un- 
necessary time in getting it out? If one has a fair 
flock of hens to start with, they may be made to pro- 
duce their own cash capital for future enlargement. If 
the start must be made, as we say, " from the ground 
floor," it is far more desirable and satisfactory to have 
a small capital. Indeed, this is true in any case. The 
necessities of the first season will be eggs and sitters 
to produce chicks, (unless the chicks are bought) 
coops or brooders, one good building for Winter, and 
a small stock of wire netting, if the birds are to be 
kept in confinement. It is difficult to know which to 
consider first, the question of capital, or that of the 
special line of work to be followed. They really be- 



20 

long together, as neither can be fully settled without 
considering the other. We will try to look at capital 
first, however. 

Having considered your handicaps, your qualifica- 
tions, your markets and your risks, and having de- 
cided that you and the poultry business can and will 
do well together, consider, now, whether you will start 
very small with no capital, or almost none, or with a 
fair amount. If you know nothing at all about poul- 
try raising, the smallest start will be the safest. If 
you have some experience, the amount of capital 
needed may depend on whether you aim high, or only 
modestly so, and upon the special line decided upon. 
Fancy stock will take more capital for a good start 
than if the work were based strictly on the production 
of eggs. Eggs, alone, may take a little more than 
working for general products, because it is likely to 
cost a little more than average money to get the best 
strains of laying fowls; while a fairly good general - 
purpose fowl may be picked up anywhere, if one is 
shrewd. One woman, whose work I knew, began 
with a nominal capital of $35; $15 of this went for 
a brooder, $6 for a few common hens, $7 more for 
seventy -five baby chicks, and the rest for wire netting. 
I have called the $35 a " nominal " capital, because 
these supplies ate up the whole amount, leaving no- 
thing wherewith to purchase feed for the flock. She 
was fortunate enough to have some one back of her 
to pay for necessary feed when the few hens on hand 
did not furnish eggs enough for this purpose ; and at 
the end of thirteen months her flock had repaid all 
capital and paid all expenses, and numbered over fifty 
laying fowls. 

There is considerable choice in the method of mak 



21 

ing a start with about the same expense at the first. 
For instance, one may buy 100 chicks, newly hatched, 
and pure -bred, for about $15; or having - a few hens 
for sitters, one may buy 150 eggs, of a very good qual - 
ity of pure -bred stock for the same money, and these 
eggs may produce more than 100 chicks. They may 
produce less, but the quality is likely to be a little 
better than when the baby chicks are bought outright. 
Again, one may pay $15 for six excellent birds, scor- 
ing well up, and by setting all their eggs up to the end 
of May, may produce a choice, and quite a large flock 
the first season. But in this case, many of the chicks 
will not be quite so early as one would like. Coming 
down to common stock, one may purchase fifteen fowls 
for half the price first named, or $7.50. Or one may 
purchase 100 common chicks for $10. Perhaps a larger 
flock can be obtained for the smaller amount of money 
by buying the common fowls very early, say in Janu- 
ary or February, and letting them hatch their own 
eggs, each raising two clutches. If nine of these 
should hatch two clutches each, say eighteen chickens, 
and 140 of these were raised, the flock would be likely 
to number somewhere about seventy -five pullets in the 
Fall. Some of these would be so late as to be of little 
value for laying before the following February or 
March, but the expenditure would have been limited 
to the cost of the original hens, and $1 for coops, plus 
the feed for the whole flock. As quite a large propor- 
tion of the eggs laid would have been used for hatch- 
ing, most of the feed would have to be paid for out of 
reserve capital, or bought on credit. By the end of 
eight months, however, the cockerels raised would 
have sold for about $40, if of a large breed, or per- 
haps $20 if of one of the special laying breeds. The 



22 

flock then would still be in debt to capital, or to the 
feed dealer, from $9 to $29 according to breed, with a 
Winter shelter still to be provided for. With a flock 
of this size, a good house for Winter should' cost $50 
at least, if new lumber is used and the carpentry must 
be hired. 

By this time, perhaps, the would-be poultry raiser, 
finding herself in so much theoretical debt, is greatly 
discouraged. There is no necessity for this, however, 
even though I believe this is as good a way as there is 
to begin with common poultry. Doubtless, it would 
be far better for the majority of women not to attempt 
to raise more than half so many chickens the first year, 
as expenses will not count up so, and prove such a 
discouragement by staring the worker in the face con- 
tinually. With capital, however, or with pluck, faith 
in one's self, and faith in the hens, the balance sheet 
will be all right in a short time. The eggs laid dur- 
ing the Winter season, under the best conditions, will 
go a long way toward wiping out this debt. The fact 
is, we have no right to call it a debt, and this is just 
where our trouble comes in. Other lines of business 
are not expected to pay back the capital put into them, 
unless they are sold out. All they are expected to do 
is to pay a small rate of interest on the capital invest- 
ed. The hens will pay a royal interest on the capital. 
Don't ask them to pay back the capital, and that the 
very first year. It is unreasonable ; a man would say, 

Just like a woman ! ' ' 

The above somewhat theoretical estimate of the cost 
of beginning in the poultry business, while very care- 
ful, and based on facts, may be valuable, or may be 
worth absolutely nothing to you who read, except as 
a guide for your own figuring. Average prices are 



3 

s 

> 

o 
o 

CO 




25 

often given by poultry writers, but an average price 
would certainly be equally valueless as a basis of 
figures, especially as there is no way of getting at 
really fair averages. The only sure way is to take 
figures which prevail in markets open to you, even as 
I have taken figures which prevail in markets easily 
accessible to me; and then, to do your own figuring. 
Common chicks, at ten cents apiece, pure -bred chicks 
at fifteen cents and upwards, common hens at fifty 
cents as a lowest price, and market chicks at twelve 
cents a pound are familiar as priced to me in our own 
markets, and these prices I have used. 

If you are desirous of working into fancy poultry, 
the necessity of beginning small is even more urgent 
than in other lines. The first cost must be far greater, 
proportionately, and one must learn the intricacies of 
breeding, and of special marketing at a high price 
products which, under common conditions, sell every- 
where at a lower price. Fancy stock, though it must 
be paid for in very real, hard cash, has a selling value 
which is, in one sense, fictitious; a value which the 
hoped-for buyer may not see at all ; a value which the 
merest accident or the fraud of a conscienceless rival , 
or judge, may partly or wholly destroy. These are 
reasons enough for going slowly with the work, unless 
you have, as modern speech has it, money to burn." 
Being a woman in quest of pocket-money, of course 
you haven't. 



CHOOSING A LINE OF WORK. 



ME speak often in these days about the 
poultry business, but there are those who 
have handled from fifty to a hundred 
fowls for years, who have never thought 
of speaking of the work as a "business." I think it 
is quite fair, however, to call it a business as soon as 
we go at it in a business-like way, keep its accounts 
with accuracy, and make it pay a business-like per- 
centage above investment. It especially behooves the 
woman who would enlarge her poultry operations to 
go at it in a "strictly business" way. The very fact 
that she is a woman will invite more general criticism, 
more sarcastic discussion of her failures, more inter- 
ested attention if she succeeds. Success for her may 
be a trifle more difficult early in the race, too ; for she 
will not receive so many concessions from dealers, and 
a woman is always considered easy game bj r those 
who would impose upon their customers. You must, 
then, if a woman, use especial shrewdness and far- 
sightedness at the beginning. These, the}' say, are 
not natural to women; therefore, you must cultivate 
them. 

Your handicaps, qualifications, and markets must 
now be studied more specifically, as affecting each 
special line of work. It may be that your choice must 
depend entirely upon these. But there are many other 



27 

things in each line of work to study faithfully, in 
order to avoid loss or failure. To work for eggs alone 
requires less strain, less expense to start with, less 
work every way. Only a definite amount of stock 
need ever be raised. Usually, a number equal to the 
flock on hand is considered right (unless one is en- 
larging operations) ; in this case twice as many chicks 
must be raised as one desires for laying stock (less the 
number of old birds to be retained) ; because, on the 
average, one -half will be males. Since there is less 
stock to be raised than with the general -purpose busi- 
ness, less room will be needed, and the risk will be 
much less. A large proportion of the risk lies, always, 
in rearing the young chicks. There is much waste in 
supplying eggs, hatchers, and feed for young chicks 
for several weeks, only to lose these chicks. If work- 
ing specially for eggs, you will be likely to use one of 
the special non -sitting, laying breeds. In this cas^, 
an incubator, or some extra hens for sitters will be 
necessary. Where but few chickens are raised, only a 
jew sitters are needed ; and thus, at almost every point, 
there is less expense than if one is doing a general - 
purpose business. Comparing a simple egg trade with 
a fancy trade, we may easily see that the last is likely 
to give immeasurably more uneasiness about a market. 
Often scores of extra birds must be kept and fed for 
months, waiting for customers; until the work, the 
feed, the possible loss from disease, and the advertis- 
ing have eaten up the value of the birds, even though 
the price received is a large one. Besides this, where 
many extra cockerels are kept over till Spring, they 
are pretty sure to prove an unmitigated nuisance and 
annoyance; while often they will fight to the death, 
unless penned alone. Looked at from every point of 



28 

view, it is very plain that a simple trade in eggs is the 
safest and surest, and that it necessitates the least work 
and expense proportionately. Therefore, other things 
being equal, it is likely to be the best line of work for 
a woman, and especially for one without capital, or 
with but little ready money. 

On the other hand, if one has pluck and capital, with 
experience, there are several points in favor of a busi- 
ness which shall look for the production both of eggs 
and of carcasses for market. If we could for a moment 
imagine ourselves as turning the twelve dozen possible 
eggs which each hen might lay into a hundred plump 
chickens, worth half a dollar apiece when five months 
old, we should obtain a striking glimpse of the great 
possibilities of this line of work. $50 gross income frcm 
one hen! But if the returns are big, so are the invest- 
ments and risks. To raise large flocks of chicks means 
a great deal of work, a very large amount of risk, a 
greatly multiplied expense for feed, appliances, and 
buildings. Yet, if you chance to live on a farm, it is 
this branch that you will have grown into more likely 
than into any other. The right kind of care is, there- 
fore, more likely to be assured; and with such care, a 
big business with big profits is perhaps more certain 
than in any other direction. 

Comparing the general -purpose line of work with 
that which looks exclusively to raising fancy stock, we 
may say that both involve large expense, for a large 
amount of business. The general -purpose work, 
possibly, involves more risk, but fancy stock brings 
many more temptations to fritter away money without 
certainty of returns. Its advertising, which is a neces- 
sity, where one's market is the whole country, unless 
judiciously done may show no return whatever for 



29 

money invested; while buildings, appliances, etc., 
which have been devoted to general purpose work, are 
a tangible thing, and can always be sold for some 
amount, if the business itself fails. Let it not be 
thought, however, that there is little or nothing to be 
said in favor of " the fancy." It is just here that one's 
qualifications come in strongly; and a woman, with 
her nice discernment, and her constant familiarity with 
the birds, may prove the winner in the field against 
any man. I have sometimes thought that it is only the 
men who are strongly possessed of some of the best 
feminine characteristics who make great and substantial 
successes with fancy poultry. Fancy stock takes fewer 
buildings and less feed in proportion to returns than 
either of the other lines if highly successful. It is well 
to remember, too, that the better the stock the more 
this fact holds true. That is, the greater the ratio of 
returns to expenses; but there are many minor ex- 
penses, such as egg -carriers, and shipping and ex- 
hibition coops, that belong entirely to a fancy trade. 
These even up this proportion to a large extent. Risks 
are both less and greater with fancy poultry than with 
either of the other lines. Every egg, every chick, 
every fowl lost counts much heavier than with common 
stock. There is less general risk in the hatching and 
rearing season, because operations are smaller. Yet 
the total amount of loss may represent more money 
value, even though the losses were by no means so 
numerous. Thieves are always more or less a weight 
upon the mind of the poultry raiser. They are a 
heavier weight according as the stock increases in 
value. The better the stock, the more temptation there 
is to outsiders to have some of it, whether by fair 
means or foul. 



30 

A point which shows fancy poultry as especially 
adapted to women is that this branch of the work de- 
mands the least pl^sical effort and labor after the birds 
reach maturity. The owner of fancy stock seldom 
cares to push the birds for heavy laying, out of the 
regular season, and there is no need to spend time and 
strength mixing mashes and providing tidbits. Be- 
sides the fact of there being less actual work, there is, 
also, much more money received in proportion to the 
work. Especially is this true, and more true, as one 
gets nearer the top of the ladder. This is a strong 
point in favor of keeping only the best stock, and it is 
as true with reference to each expense, as it is with- 
reference to work. The better the stock, as breeders, 
the fewer chickens need to be raised, because there will 
be fewer culls. Even with the best of stock one must 
raise several times as many birds as can be sold at the 
highest prices. Culls may be looked upon, or perhaps 
are looked upon almost as an expense to the fancy 
breeder, for they necessitate fixtures, feed, and work 
unnecessary with smaller numbers. Get good stock, 
therefore ; breed carefully, and keep the proportion of 
culls low. 

The fancier will tell you that only in this line of the 
work can be found the true delights of poultry raising. 
But every fancier is a crank, in so far as that he can 
see but one side of the question. ' The fancy " has no 
mortgage on all the pleasures of poultry raising. To 
be sure, here one's delight in the beautiful can be sat- 
isfied in the highest degree; to be sure, it is an infinite 
satisfaction to know that the birds are being reared for 
the pleasure of keeping them, rather than for the pain 
of killing them; to be sure, the inherent, keen delight 
in competition, which all human beings feel, may be 



31 

here satisfied to the full, and in the most public man- 
ner; to be sure, the joys of success are greater here 
than in the mere raising of general -purpose, or ordinary 
egg -laying fowls. But a measure of the joy of success 
belongs to every one who does good work. And she 
who raises large numbers of chickens successfully, or 
she who succeeds in running her yearly egg record to 
twelve and fifteen dozens or even higher, will have 
little cause to envy her with the blue ribbons on her 
coops ; for each will have won the highest success in her 
chosen line of work, and it is this that gives the highest 
spice to life . In the one case it is prettier work , and pleas - 
anter work, and more people know about it, that is all. 
The woman who is fond of raisinglittle chicks gets almost 
as much pleasure out of handling the wee, downy bird- 
lings that have no pedigree behind them, as though 
they were descended from the most artistocratic f ami - 
lies; and, for that matter, she may raise only blue- 
blooded birds, and handsome birds, for mere egg lay- 
ing, or even in general -purpose work, if she desires to 
do so. It sometimes costs a little more for stock to 
breed from, but the extra expense would not be much 
felt, unless in a very small business. It is a fact you 
must remember, that a small business feels a small ex- 
pense more than a large business feels a large expense. 






THE BREED THAT WINS. 



r s /^fc^HK winner " is the bird that attracts uni- 
versal attention at the shows. But there 



Ku 



may be a winning breed in each of .the 
three lines of work which we are con - 
sidering. The breed which wins the highest enconium 
as layers, would be useless as a general -purpose 
fowl; the best general -purpose fowl is often found 
to be a cross, and not a distinct breed at all; the win- 
ning breed of fancy fowls it is hardly safe to name, 
lest raisers of all other breeds fly into a passion about 
the matter. For our present purpose, the breed that 
wins may be considered as the one which will be best 
adapted to your circumstances and intentions. That 
the great winning breed of to-day, in the egg-laying 
field, is the White Leghorn, appears in every poultry 
publication one may chance to take up, even though 
the fact be not expressly affirmed at all. It appears in 
the comparison of every breed with the Leghorn, when- 
ever productiveness is named. " Equal to the Leg- 
horn " means the best that the world has seen, up to 
date. The very word Leghorn is a synonym for the 
highest possible egg production. There are a few who 
wish to dispute this, but they are the few exceptions 
which prove the rule. What does " Equal to the Leg- 
horn " actually mean in detail? It means early lay- 
ing; it means large eggs; it means small eating; it 



H 

td 

> 

CO 




35 

means non -sitting capacity ; it means a bird of small 
size, of which more in number can be housed in pro- 
portionate space that in the case of a large breed. 

Let us look at the Minorca, now claimed by some to 
be the equal, if not the superior, of the Leghorn. The 
Minorca has the true egg -laying and non -sitting ca- 
pacity, with added size of egg and of body. The 
added size of body is only a detriment if one wishes to 
hold strictly to an egg -producing business. Increase 
in the size of a Mediterranean fowl is, at the best, only 
an effort to put her into the general -purpose class. 
The greater size of eggs would be an advantage with a 
family, or a fancy market trade, but would count for 
nothing in the general market, now. The future, pos- 
sibly the near future, may tell a different story. As a 
matter of fact, all the strictly egg -laying breeds 
will prove highly profitable, and almost equally so, 
with the best of treatment. It is more a matter of color 
than anything else. That is to Say, there is little differ- 
ence between any of the Mediterraneans and the White 
Leghorn, as to fact; the main difference lies in the 
reputation, the popular notion that the Leghorn is bet- 
ter than all the others. Still, as long as this idea holds, 
as long as ' ' White Leghorn eggs ' ' have the inside 
track of the New York market, and as long as hand- 
some, white fowls capture the beholder sooner than 
any other, it will not be a mistake to choose the White 
Leghorn before all others, as an egg layer. 

For the place of leading general -purpose fowl, the 
contest between Plymouth Rock and Light Brahma 
was hot and long. The one thing that quieted it to 
some extent, was the instant leap of the White Wyan- 
dot into a place above both with the broiler men. 
Every expert with whom I have talked, and almost 



36 

without exception all who write, put the White Wy- 
andot in the winning place, as a broiler. It has about 
every good quality of either of the above-named rivals, 
except weight, and the fact that it is plump at every 
stage of growth counts very strongly in its favor. This 
is a point to be well considered. Nearly every breed 
has a lank and leggy period somewhere about midway 
on its path toward maturity. If the broiler has not 
attained its size and weight as early as was expected, 
or if there is anything in the market which necessitates 
carrying it on two or three weeks longer than was in - 
tended, so that it runs into this leggy period, it has lost 
its chief value. As a plump, juicy market broiler it 
doesn't count, and never will. With the Wyandot 
there is less of this difficulty than with any other breed. 
This is universal testimony. If the broilers are to be 
sold very young, the pure White Leghorn is sometimes 
crossed on the pure White Wyandot to get the earlier - 
maturing, quicker growth. It might be said for the 
Light Brahma that no other breed known produces such 
hardy chicks, and if the market is sure, so that the 
chicks can be used before they come to the lean stage, 
it makes an excellent broiler. Many prefer crosses of 
the Leghorn with one of these favorite large breeds. A 
Plymouth Rock is always good wherever you find it, 
but those who have raised broilers are almost uniform 
in putting the Wyandot first. 

If there is not much thought of selling young broilers 
the Wyandot has very few points of excellence, if any, 
over the Plymouth Rock and Light Brahma. The 
Brahma has the extra hardiness, but even its advocates 
admit that the modern Brahma is not so good a layer 
as was the older type of the breed. The Plymouth 
Rock has the darker pin -feathers, as a slight offset to 



37 

its good points ; the White Wyandot has a little less 
size. All are good enough layers, with proper care, 
and all are good Winter layers. The question may 
arise as to why the White Plymouth Rock is not chosen, 
to avoid the one mentioned defect of the Plymouth 
Rock. The answer is that the White Plymouth Rock 
is hardly, as yet, a fair exponent of the breed; and as 
we do not hear it praised to any great extent, the quick 
inference is that it does not deserve that which it does 
not receive. To be sure, it is yet quite new, not 
breeding wholly true, perhaps ; perhaps, also, not well 
tried, and a little behind in the race, because of the 
White Wyandot. In connection with fancy poultry, a 
different line of argument settles every question, and a 
different method of work is to be adopted at nearly 
every point. One may start in a very small way, and 
the amount of housing and feed is small in proportion 
to the returns. That is, this is true if the owner prove 
a good salesman, who does not have to carry an undue 
amount of surplus stock through the cold season. 

Before beginning with fancy poultry at all, it will be 
well to see if some practical, working principles can 
not be laid down and studied which shall save the 
worker from blunders. One of these may be stated 
thus : Choose the popular .breed, rather than the scarce 
breed. You will be likely to argue with what seems to 
you shrewdness, that there will, be more chance to sell 
a breed which is new, or which few people raise. The 
fact is just the contrary ; the breed which few people 
raise is, as a rule, the breed which almost nobody 
wants. A second principle is : Select a breed you like, 
and the one you know the most about, if possible. A 
third principle, the consideration of which may save 
taking the back track sometimes, is this: The easy 



38 • 

way, and the safe way to work into fancy poultry is to 
choose a variety that is easy to breed, easy to raise, 
and easy to sell. 

Fanciers have a way of sneering at those who raise 
fancy poultry for the mere money that there is in it. 
They affirm that the true fancier thinks only of the 
delights of rearing handsome birds, and of the beauty 
of those birds when reared to maturity. But the de- 
lights of this sort are apt to remain sadly in the back- 
ground for a number of seasons, in the case of those 
who do not work according to the rule just laid down. 
It is well to remember, too, if you want to make sales, 
that utility points count much, unless the market is 
wholly among those who are fanciers pure and simple. 
If, therefore, a breed add many points of utility to its 
beauty points, there will be a much wider range of 
buyers for it. The parti -colored birds are alwaj^s 
more difficult to breed, and the beginner will strike a 
good many more snags in trying to breed the Brown 
Leghorn, or the Barred Plymouth Rock to fancy points, 
than would be the case if choosing a solid -colored 
breed. 

The most important thing is, really, to do a lot of 
preliminary thinking and studying; to ply experts 
with questions, even at the risk of appearing to be a 
know -little; and once the breed is decided on, to learn 
its standard by heart, before making a single move in 
the direction of breeding it. I believe the majority of 
fanciers, both men and woman, make one of their first 
and biggest blunders here. Most of them work with 
a breed three or four seasons before they get to the 
point where they think they can afford the Standard of 
Perfection. Finally acquiring possession of it, they 
find that a large per cent, of the information they have 



39 

been laboriously and expensively gaining by experi- 
ence, might have been had from the Standard, before 
beginning at all. A knowledge of scoring is an essen- 
tial part of the fitting out of a fancier, and it pays to 
learn to score the breed you would handle at a very 
early stage of the work. 






ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL INCUBA- 
TION. 



m WOMAN nearly seventy -five years old once 
wrote to ask if I would advise her about 
the purchase of an incubator; to which I 
promptly replied, "Don't, unless you want 
to try it merely for the fun there is in it." Really, 
the rage for incubators is getting to be almost equal to 
the rage for bicycles, and, I had almost said, worse, 
among women. When incubator makers, and the itch- 
ing for experiment, together, tempt the child of tender 
years, and the woman of seventy -five, into raising 
machine-made chicks, it is time for some one to call a 
halt. I have no quarrel with the incubator. It is a 
marvelous help to the poultry business in its proper 
place; but that place is not the nursery of the child, 
the sitting-room of a woman past the allotted three 
score and ten, nor the spare bed -room of the farmer's 
wife. It may sound funny, but this is no laughing 
matter. That same bed -room is just the place where I 
have seen the largest proportion of the incubators 
which I know to have been purchased for the use of 
some enthusiastic farmers' wives. And the worst of it 
is, every one of these which was purchased with so 
much hope, is now disused and for sale ; and this, even 
though it may have been successfully handled. The 
simple fact is, the incubator is not needed on the farm, 



41 

unless there is to be a specialty made of broiler raising, 
or extra early chicks for some market. 

The incubator is a fine thing, and it has points of 
value against which no hen can successfully compete. 
If you want to raise broilers by all means have an in - 
cubator. In no other way can you successfully handle 
large numbers of early chicks. Even if you had the 
sitters, hatching takes too many of them from active 
duty at a time when you want them laying high -priced 
eggs. The advantages of compact handling which the 
incubator has over sitting hens, as usually managed, 
are invaluable. Moreover, it is ready at all times, and 
just when you want it, and may be placed near at hand 
where there is no exposure from storm in running back 
and forth to attend it. This means much more to a 
woman than a man, for a woman's petticoats are one 
of her greatest hindrances in the poultry business. It 
may be said that the sitting hen as well as the incuba- 
tor might occupy the cellar of- the dwelling-house. 
Indeed, she often does so. But there is an argument 
in favor of the incubator which must appeal strongly 
to every feminine heart. Never, in its most cranky 
moments, will the incubator get off the nest and in- 
dulge in a vociferous quarrel with its nearest neighbor, 
just when your most aristocratic callers are in the room 
above! The sitting hen has been known to do this, 
without any after -manifestation of penitence. 

Perhaps as strong a point as can be urged in favor 
of the incubator is that the chicks, when hatched, are 
free from lice ; though I have known even this fact to 
be calmly disputed. On the other hand, the incubator 
has some serious disadvantages. In the case of fire, 
it is almost impossible to get any insurance on the 
buildings if there is an incubator anywhere on the 



42 

place. All one's hopes, whether connected with the 
chickens or otherwise, may go up in smoke any hour 
of the day or night. And if, through accident, there 
is a loss of the hatch, the loss is heavy, instead of a 
paltry dozen or so, which the sitting hen might have 
left to the mercies of an unfeeling world. The num- 
ber of failures chargeable to the incubator in its first 
stages of individual trial is tremendous. These are 
mostly unpublished, because people like to keep quiet 
about their failures. They may succeed later; and it 
is only the success which is talked about. I think this 
is particularly true of women, who always stand in 
awe of the jeers of their menfolk, be they husbands or 
sons, be they brutes or angels. 

Perhaps it can not be called exactly a disadvantage 
that the incubator hatches no better than the hen ; it 
is rather a lack of the advantage which is often claimed 
for the machine. Notwithstanding the frequent claims 
of seventy -five per cent to ninety -five per cent and 
over, the testimony of those who have done the most 
practical work with incubators is almost unanimous to 
the effect that a hatch of fifty per cent of the eggs put 
in is an excellent sample of the average work of all 
incubators. Now, fifty per cent of thirteen is six and 
one -half. When two of your sitters bring off, to- 
gether, but thirteen chicks, you berate them; yet this 
is fully equal to the average work of the average incu- 
bator. More than this, if your incubator proves a 
failure your money is gone, and your chances of sale 
small, while your natural incubator is always salable. 
This might be a puerile thing to consider if the incu- 
bator had all the advantages claimed for it. In the 
light of facts, it counts. It would not be fair to leave 
out of the account the disadvantages of the sitters, of 



. 2 








BROWN LEGHORN MALE. 



45 

which transmitting to the chicks their hereditary lice 
is the worst. Leaving the nest at the most critical 
point of the hatch, and calmly trampling to death the 
most promising ones already out, are blemishes against 
their character not to be denied. I think a woman is 
capable of as hot wrath, I think she can get just as 
mad clear through, over a sitting hen and her small 
misdemeanors, as over an incubator with its hundreds. 
But let her cool herself off by considering that, in the 
long run, the cantankerous sitters will do their fifty 
per cent easily. 

The trouble with the incubator is that it and the 
woman who harnesses herself with it do not, as a rule, 
under ordinary conditions, make so valuable a team as 
the woman expected. But the woman and the sitting 
hen can generally be expected to make a good team. 
Perhaps in both cases, the " smarter" the woman, the 
better the team ; but I think there is no doubt that 
in a majority of cases extra care, increases the percent- 
age of chicks from the sitters considerably more than 
from the incubators. Proper care brings early chicks, 
too, in sufficient proportion, from the natural mothers. 
Sitting hens enough to hatch an equal number of eggs 
can be placed in a space equal to that occupied by the 
incubator, if we choose to do it that way. There is no 
risk from fire, and, taken all around, the quantity of 
anxiety on hand certainly exists in smaller chunks, if 
it be not less in bulk. 

There are those who argue that the sitting hen 
hatches chicks at less expense than the incubator. 
Allowing that they shall hatch about the same percent- 
age proportionately, I think this point is decidedly in 
favor of the incubator. We count a sitting hen's time 
to be worth as much as the eggs which she would have 



46 

been likely to lay during that period. In the twenty - 
one da} T s — as the hatching season is also the laying 
season — she might be fairly counted on for a dozen 
eggs. If we average these at sixteen cents, it will 
cost $1.12 to incubate 100 eggs by the use of the hen. 
The cost of oil, and the interest on investment for the 
machine should not be more than sixty cents for the 
same number. I once visited a plant where 2,200 lay- 
ing hens are kept. The business is one for utility 
only, laying hens being the first item. The owner of 
the plant is an unusually shrewd business man, and 
very successful. It is evidently his deliberate judg- 
ment that the incubator does not pay, for he hatches 
all the eggs which are to furnish his many hundreds of 
young pullets with hens alone! If there are those 
who still think it would be to their advantage under 
their special circumstances to use incubators ( as indeed 
it may be) let them heed a word of caution. If you 
are a woman, unless very strong, do not let any one 
beguile you into buying a large incubator. The trays 
are too heavy when filled with eggs. The 100 -egg 
machine is decidedly the best for average ordinary use. 






47 



SATISFACTORY COOPS AND 
BROODERS. 



<y I ^j^f^l HATKVKR variance of opinion there may 
1 M be as regards incubators, the testimony 

^Ir^r^ of poultry raisers, everywhere, is virtu- 
ally unanimous as to the great value 
of brooders. And they are as valuable in degree 
to the small, trial plant, managed by one overworked 
woman, as they are to the most extensive business, 
with scores of paid employees. As pocket-money 
poultry is pretty likely to be a thing of small begin - 
nings, and as the small beginning, if there be lack of 
experience, is the only reasonably safe beginning, our 
points on this subject will be confined almost entirely 
to articles of home manufacture. One may buy brood- 
ers — good ones; but the good brooders, when pur- 
chased, necessitate capital. The indoor brooders can 
not be run without a shed in which to place them , 
while the outdoor sort, generally having a shed as a 
part of their makeup, and commonly priced at $10 to 
$20, seem expensive to start with. 

Whether the brooder is bought from the manuf ac - 
turer, or builded in the home shop, there are certain 
things we must ask of it. If it does not meet our re- 
quirements it will be a source of loss, rather than of 
profit. The satisfactory brooder must have sufficient 
warmth in connection with sufficient fresh air, even 



48 




CHEAP AND SUCCESSFUL HOME-MADE BROODER. 
Fig - . 1. — Shows front part of Brooder, with lower door open with lamp 
inside. Fig. 2. — Shows completed Brooder open; a a, warm air tubes; b, 
bridge in place after screen door is dropped; c, felt fringe (cut away to 
show tubes.) 



under the hover — if there be a hover. It must also 
have room for the chicks to move away from the heat, 
.should this become too great. There must be provis- 
ion for a run outside as soon as the chicks are a few 
days old, and there must be protection from storm, 
usually attained by means of a shed, as before men- 
tioned. There must be a sufficient amount of floor 
space allotted to each chick or failure is certain. The 
$20 brooder which we have in use on our own place is 
listed to carry 100 chicks. The size of the hover al- 
lows a little over seven square inches to each , when it 



49 , 

is occupied by 100. If you will make a mental pic- 
ture of a small square, about two and two -thirds inches 
on each side, you will see how much space can be 
given to each chick ! Inasmuch as a chick is more 
than two and two -thirds inches long when hatched it 
is manifest that as soon as these chicks begin to grow, 
some must either be crowded to death, or crowded 
outside to make room for the rest. And this will be a 
continuous operation, as growth continues. Please 
notice that these facts are true of a brooder which is 
confessedly one of the very best. What must be the 
case with the poor ones? A woman who raises several 
hundred chicks a season, and who, before using a 
brooder, lost from fifty to 100 each season, said to me : 
" I don't allow for losses anymore. With this sim- 
plest of home-made brooders, I can raise about every 
chick hatched, and do it every time." The brooder 
referred to consisted of a soap box, a jug of boiling 
water replenished every twelve hours, and a small 
window sash to cover part of the box. After a week 
or two these brooders are placed in an outdoor run. 
Of course, they are not used in extreme cold weather. 
The crowding in a brooder of this style will be toward 
the center, and as the corners are neared, the circular 
space about the jug enlarges, giving more room. This 
brooder avoids the chief difficulty with brooders, as 
commonly heated, namely, the lamp fumes. If one is 
not strong, it is not quite easy to handle the water and 
jugs though a syphon may be used to empty the jugs. 
Any rubber tube will form the syphon, and suction at 
the free end will start the water flowing. This end 
must be below the one in the jug. If a lamp brooder 
be preferred, it can be made at the cost of $1, most of 
which will go for a lamp ; if the lower box is deep 



50 

enough to admit it, a good, common hand lamp will 
do just as good service as another. 

One of these cheap brooders now in service was 
made of two "gold-dust" boxes, one placed above 
and upon the other. These boxes came without covers. 
An inch below the open top of the lower box, on the 
inside, was nailed a cleat, supporting a sheet of tin the 
size of the box. In this lower box was placed the low 
brooder lamp. Two holes were bored in the bottom 
of the other (upper) box, to admit the insertion of spice 
boxes. These are perforated, and allow the warm air 
to pass up, and diffuse itself over the chicks. These 
were placed a little toward one end; a partition, with 
door, cutting off one -third of the box, so that nearly- 
all the heat can be given to the other two -thirds, when 




ONE WOMAN'S BROODER SHELTER. 
Size, 4 feet by 5 feet on floor. 



51 

the weather is extra cool. Usually, however, the little 
door in this partition is hooked open. One -half of 
this box is covered with boards; the other, with a re- 
movable glass top. This is necessary, because for a 
week or so the chicks are kept entirely in this box and 
must have good light. One side of this upper box is 
replaced by a full -sized door, made of common mos- 
quito wire screen. This is a drop door, and admits of 
a bridge being placed here, as soon as the chicks are 
old enough to be allowed access to the ground. A 
slashed fringe of felt drops inside the screen door 
nearly to the floor, if for April use. This brooder 
carries twenty -five chicks to eight weeks of age. A 
brooder like this must be accompanied by a shed, un- 
less there is some building to which it can be removed 
upon the approach of a storm, or at night. Such re- 
moval is a make -shift nuisance. A simple shed, five 
feet by four feet on the floor, four feet high in front, 
and two feet high at the rear, was made by a lad, and 
a supervising woman, in five and a half hours. Each 
side was made by itself, by nailing the boards upon 
strips at top and bottom. The roof was made in the 
same way. The whole structure hooks together, so 
that it can be stored after the chick season. Two 
boards only are nailed on. These are placed vertically 
one at each side, on the front. To them is hooked a 
screen which occupies the rest of the front. This may 
be made of inch -mesh netting on a frame, or of laths. 
Its removal allows easy access to the brooder during 
the day, while at night the chicks are not only abso- 
lutely secure, but have the fresh air which is so essen- 
tial to their thrift. The roof projects a few inches at 
both front and rear, and the whole structure is batten- 
ed. The expense was $2 for stuff, in a place where 



52 




A GOOD COOP. 

Made from two Quaker Oats boxes. 

lumber is high, and fifty -five cents for the boy's work. 
Sheds, somewhat smaller than the above, can now be 
bought ready made for about $5. They furnish the 
best of roosting coops for the young stock after it is 
past the brooder stage, and, indeed, for the remainder 
of the season. But care must be taken that the chicks 
are not crowded in these little houses as they increase 
in size. This crowding is a fruitful source of loss in 
growth and thrift. The temptation to crowding, which 
brooders and such sheds engender, is the worst, and, 
perhaps, almost the only objection to the brooder 
system. Fancy coops and fancy brooders are mere ex- 
cuses for investing money, without corresponding re- 
turns. The cheapest coops are, as a rule, the best. 
And all we need ask of a coop is that it shall be suf- 
ficiently roomy, that it shall be rain -proof but airy, 




WHITE LANGSHAN MALE. 



55 

and that it shall have a board floor, at least in part. 
The despised old barrel, with a little lath run in front 
of it, makes a really excellent coop, if raised a little 
at the rear so that the chicks shall crowd forward in- 
stead of backward, and covered with felt paper, or any 
other material that shall render it rain -proof. Shoe- 
boxes, battened, and furnished with a screen or slatted 
front, make thoroughly effective coops at small ex- 
pense. To use a coop with less than four to eight square 
feet of floor space is cruelty itself, unless the hen has 
access to a run. 

If one wants to do a little more work for the sake of 
having- a sloping roof, Quaker Oats boxes may be so 
managed as to form a rather neat, though not roomy 
coop. With a covered run in front, to which hen as 
well as chicks have access, these will do very good 
work. Three boxes will make two coops. The odd 
box is sawed diagonally into halves. Each half, be- 
ing placed upon one of the other' boxes, forms a slop • 
ing roof thereto. The front of each main box may be 
entirely replaced with a slatted front, or may have 
merely a slatted door in the center. In order to be 
convenient this door must be so arranged as to slide 
up and down, and it should be of good size in order to 
admit a fair amount of air. Perhaps, to the wide- 
reaching masculine mind, all this work to provide 
cheap coops may seem like small and fussy business. 
But unless time is particularly valuable the small sav- 
ings which the use of time can make are no small part 
of the profit. Besides, few men know what it is to be 
absolutely lacking in pocket -money, and can not, there - 
fore, appreciate these small savings at theii true worth. 
To a woman, the time-worn saying, "A penny saved 
is two -pence earned" comes with ten -fold more force 
*han it can possibl}^ have to any man. 



56 



MOTHERING CHICKS. 



/^fc^HBRE are two chief methods of "mothering- 
/ I chicks," the more common including the aid 
^fci^ of the natural mother, the other the tender 
mercies of the wooden box known as a 
brooder. The hen has instinct and warmth to com- 
mend her; the brooder lacks instinct, but also lacks 
many of the annoying, cranky ways of the hen, and 
it also furnishes the heat required for the broods at 
all times, which no solicitation or shrewdness on the 
part of the owner can induce the hen to do ; as the 
chicks are so very dependent on warmth, this is a 
strong point in favor of the mechanical "mother." 
The woman in the case is the real mother, after all, 
and it is for her to choose which will be the better 
partner of or conducer to her joys and sorrows, the 
live hen or the wooden hen. 

In either case, hers is the love which must needs 
patiently care for all weak and tender living creatures ; 
hers the solicitude ; hers the brain that must foresee 
and avoid difficulties; hers (alas for sentiment!) the 
interest in the inflow of pocket-money. The three 
great points in mothering chicks are to provide proper 
shelter, sufficient warmth, and the best food in the 
right quantities for best growth and thrift. The 
principles of the work are the same, whichever ally 
is chosen. But if the woman who is intent on chick 



57 

rearing has time enough at her command, I think 
there is no doubt that the mechanical brooder will 
prove the better partner all around. In any case, she 
must furnish artificial shelter, feed, and much of the 
care. Why not have the heat, also, under control, 
and thus be more largely mistress of circumstances? 

Brooders and coops have been fairly well discussed 
in another chapter, but a further word on slatted 
fronts for coops may be advisable. It is true that 
the majority consider them all right, and both these 
and netted fronts have been mentioned as allowable ; 
but the woman who writes is growing daily less in 
favor of them, especially when the coops are open 
only in front. In cool weather, they are all right ; in 
Summer heat with stifling nights, they are far from 
allowing entrance to sufficient fresh air. Wire netting 
makes a much better front to all shelters, at this time. 
Even our patent, high-priced brooders have been fitted 
with wire -net doors, so that the wooden doors may 
stand wide at night, when suffocating Summer heat is 
at hand. Only thus can the chicks be made to thrive. 

In mothering chicks, the word ''care" is most 
comprehensive ; for it means that during the brooding 
season the "mother" in the case must literally give 
herself to the work. Her eyes must be open to every 
change in expression in every chick ; her ears must 
be open to every change of note in the continual 
speech of the broodlings ; her mind must be all the 
time on the chicks, and, unless they count first with 
her, there is sure to be loss. This is not saying that 
it will take all her time to care for 100 or 200 baby 
chicks, but it does mean that she must never be 
out of sight and hearing of them if she would have 
all run smoothly and without loss. It is true that 



58 

many women mother chicks artificially, and do full 
work in the house, and careful duty to the children of 
the home besides; but I think that, in these circum- 
stances, there can never be fullest measure of success. 
There will always be losses that might have been 
avoided with more care. For "care" means the 
oversight of the entire life, and, in one sense, includes 
both the other points; namely, feed and housing. 

Care means watchfulness of every detail. It means 
foresight with regard to every storm, every marauder, 
every disease; every accident, too, I had almost said. 
But while many accidents can be avoided by fore- 
sight, some will occur in spite of everything. . For 
instance, chicks may be lost through sunstroke, 
while furnished with every means of comfort in the 
way of water, shade, etc. Or, a tiny youngling may 
get injured by netting or drinking fount, so that blood 
starts, and in the few minutes while the owner's at- 
tention was elsewhere, the little fellow may have been 
picked to death. Kvery drooping wing, every dull 
eye, every tendency to looseness of bowels must be 
noted, or some scourge may grip the whole brood 
while careless eyes were unnoting the signs of trouble 
at hand. If warmth has been sufficient, and food not 
excessive, the best medicine to try first is generally 
grit ; for indigestion is at the bottom of a very large 
proportion of chick ills, and even the watchful mis- 
tress sometimes overlooks the empty grit dish. Gapes 
is a trouble much feared, which watchful care may 
render harmless, except for a little extra work. Fresh 
ground for runs, and dry grains for feed will save the 
chicks from most of its ravages. If it appears, 
safety lies in fumigating the whole brood with car- 
bolic acid, dropped on a hissing hot griddle, or brick. 



59 

From one -half minute to two minutes' exposure is 
sufficient, according to the density of the fumes. In 
a small, close box, one teaspoonful of acid will create 
fumes dense enough for one -minute exposures, if the 
griddle is very hot. A bag will do for cover. 

While the author of these practical notes believes 
most thoroughly that principles are better than minute 
instructions in detail, yet, for the help of some who are 
new to the work, some feed rations will be noted. No 
one need ask for better feeds, to rear chicks from start 
to finish, than millet, wheat, and cracked corn, pro- 
vided that the birds have plenty of range and green 
food, with the attendant bugs and worms, and it is 
difficult to raise the best chicks without these. 
Brooder chicks may be kept close to their foster- 
mothers by yarding for two or three weeks, or until 
they know where they belong, and will come at call in 
case of sudden showers. But "the wider the range, 
the better the chick," is a good maxim to believe and 
to practice. 

Soft feeds push for quick growth and fat broilers, 
and are sometimes cheaper to use than the whole 
grains. Oats from which the hulls have been removed 
make excellent chick feed, since none other of the de- 
sirable grains for chicks is so rich in the muscle - 
making" protein. But, as the chicks soon learn to 
prefer most other foods to oats, it seems best to use 
this grain chiefly for the morning feed, when the ap- 
petite is keen, and not to feed to cloying excess. A 
good growing ration may consist of rolled oats for a 
rather light breakfast, a soft feed of hard-boiled egg, 
bran, and corn -meal, (preferably mixed with milk after 
the bran is scalded) not too long thereafter, a third 
feed of millet, and a supper of cracked corn ; the 



60 

supper being- always liberal, but not to the extent of 
packing the crops too hard. 

A second good feed may include hulled oats for 
breakfast; curd, scalded bran and corn -meal in equal 
parts for the next meal; wheat for the third feeding, 
and cracked corn for supper, as before. In all cases, 
green food should form one-fifth, at least, of the en- 
tire ration; f.nd, if range is limited, or bare, this must 
be a part of the regularly furnished ration. In this 
case, it is not a bad plan to alternate the green and 
the grain feed. 

The two rations given above may be alternated, if 
desired, or curd and egg may be replaced by a very 
little animal meal and bone after the first three weeks ; 
but I would advise all to be careful how they feed 
meat to very young birds. A ration that can be used 
right along may consist of oats for breakfast, with a 
mash made of scalded bran, middlings, horse feed, 
sifted, and corn -meal or cracked corn in equal parts, for 
all the other meals. A little meat -meal may be added 
to this once a day. This may be cheaper than the 
others. For myself, I prefer grain at night, in- 
variably. For one thing, dry foods render the 
brooders incredibly easier to clean and care for regu- 
larly. The periods between cleanings may also be 
longer. Clover meal can be added to any soft mix- 
ture, but it is a little constipating, and must be offset 
by green foods and bran. Young chicks can easily 
be taught to eat chopped onion or potato, lettuce, 
grass, plantain, cabbage, and purslane ("pusley") 
if they do not seem to like them at the first. They 
will pick at whatever is left before them so long as it 
is fresh, and they are not over-fed. 

Mothering chicks, while exacting and risky work, 



61 

is work that pays exceedingly well in pocket-money, 
in any fair location. Early chicks are incomparably 
the best; and, usually, easiest to raise, provided they 
do not come from eggs laid during the prevailing 
Mid -winter infertility. The risk is reduced to a 
minimum after a few years of study and practice in 
the fascinating work. Or — to repeat — knowledge 
and experience are power, and they command pocket- 
money. 



^ 



THE FIRST SEASON'S WORK. 



»|f A AVING decided which of the three lines of 
■ ■^^^ work is best to follow, it still remains for 
11%,/ you to consider a point suggested in the 
chapter entitled, "How Much Capital?' 
This is, whether it is best, at the outset, to buy- 
eggs, to buy newly -hatched chicks, or to buy a 
small stock of mature fowls. In connection with 
this, it must be decided whether common stock or 
stock of some good pure -bred strain is to be used. 
The pure -bred stock will cost a trifle more at the be- 
ginning, and only at the beginning. At first it may 
seem something of a puzzle whether it is best to buy 
fifteen common hens for $7.50, and bother with the 
hatching; or to buy 100 common chicks alread}' stand- 
ing on good, strong legs, for $10 ; or with better stock, 
whether to buy ten birds of good quality for $15, fif- 
teen settings of eggs for the same money, or 100 pure- 
bred chicks, for the same figure, or $15. But it must 
be remembered that if you buy eggs, you must have 
something to hatch them, and if you buy either eggs, 
or chicks, you must have something to brood them. 
In the long run, then, if you have absolutely no fowls or 
fixtures to start with, it is likely to be better policy to 
buy the hens outright, very early in the season, and 
let them hatch out a fair number of chicks. You will 
thus be getting experience in all the various lines of 




BUFF COCHIN FEMALE. 



65 

work, for the one investment, and there will probably 
be some small income from the hens, as there will be a 
few surplus eggs. 

Having chicks on hand, by some one of the above 
means, brooding then becomes the urgent question of 
the hour. If you have bought the hens, this question 
will not seem so serious as it will if you have mother- 
less chicks on your mind. If the brooder is a neces- 
sity, it may be the home-made box affair, at $1 for 
each twenty -five chicks, or the $20 palace with sup- 
posed room for 100. But it must be provided in ad- 
vance, and long enough in advance to be sure that it 
will be in first-rate running order, as soon as the 
chicks are ready for it. Your first duty to the chicks 
will be to see that they are freed from lice (unless in- 
cubator hatched) by thoroughly dusting with insect 
powder, or powdered tobacco. Impress the thought 
firmly upon your mind that warmth, and warmth alone, 
is the only absolute necessity for these weaklings, for 
the first twenty -four or thirty hours, and that you will 
do more harm than good by aiming to do anything 
more than to keep them warm and dry for this period. 
From this time on, until the chicks are nearly grown,, 
or half -grown, perhaps, your problem will be to add 
to this warmth and dryness proper food and water, and 
sufficient exercise. This is the whole of chicken rear- 
ing — warmth, dryness, food, water, exercise. It is in 
the effort to balance these things properly that diffi- 
culty arises. For instance, the beginner, in watering 
the chicks will allow them to get themselves, and their 
brooding floors saturated with water. One of the five 
essentials, dryness, is at once lacking, and trouble be- 
gins. Water they must have, but it must be furnished 
in small and shallow vessels ; and for the first few days 



66 

it is better to supply it after each feeding, and remove 
it as soon as the little fellows are satisfied. 

Feeding formulas may be picked- up everywhere. 
They differ much, though doubtless all are good, if 
judiciously used. A feeding principle will do you 
more good than one, or a hundred feeding formulas. 
Feed only sound, sweet food, taking care that grit is 
provided for its digestion; see that at least one -fourth 
of its bulk is green stuff, and never over -feed to such 
an extent that the crops are packed tight and hard. 
They may appear full at the close of the feeding, but 
should always give a little to the touch, more like a 
hollow rubber ball than a solid one. As to the ma- 
terial for the feed, one of the most prominent poultry- 
men in the country recommends oatmeal, which may 
be the pin -head, or the rolled flakes, as the best foun- 
dation feed for the first few months. I find that the 
flakes are a little apt to pack in the crop, and cause 
indigestion, and must, therefore, be fed lightly. I 
have known a woman, a novice in chicken growing, 
to have remarkable success while feeding cracked corn, 
and cracked corn only, from the very first. I have 
known people to have good success with almost every 
variation of feeding formula, provided the soft food 
was swelled, and not soured before feeding. I have 
known a woman to raise good ducks on nothing but 
bran and grass, which would seem a dangerously laxa- 
tive feed. I knew of one man who thought nothing of 
raising 1,200 chicks in a season, yet who fed them out 
of the same mess which was prepared for his laying 
hens, of which the foundation was dried cut clover, 
scalded; and the seasoning, meat meal. I think his 
average proportion of loss was twenty per cent. There 
are many who would think they had the whole busi- 



67 

ness at their finger's end, could they place their losses 
at this low figure. 

I do not believe in confining young chicks, unless it 
is absolutely necessary. Chicks raised in confinement, 
if at all close, do not show such thrift and vigor as 
those raised upon range. But as soon as the maturing 
cockerels begin to be obtrusive, it is essential that they 
be separated from the pullets, even though, as is some- 
times the case with the Leghorns, this occurs at six 
weeks old. A roll of wire netting, or better still, mov- 
able hurdles, or panels of the same, are among the 
most useful adjuncts to the chicken grower's work. 
Above all things, avoid crowding. It is during growth 
that fowls feel the effects of this most. If they are 
badly crowded as chicks, they are ruined for life, some- 
times constitutionally, sometimes through stunting, 
often by deformity. The commonest and easiest way 
of getting room, from Mid-summer on, is by selling 
off the males. If they reach the size the market de- 
mands by July, they are never likely to bring more 
money in proportion to cost than at this period; and, 
as their room is decidedly better than their company, it 
is best to get rid of them at this time. Mediterranean 
males are pretty apt to be behind the market, and not 
salable at all, until they are full grown. When they 
reach this stage, prices have fallen so low that they pay 
a very small profit on the cost of raising them. It is 
for this reason that some believe it to be better to kill 
the cockerels as soon as they can be distinguished. To 
many, this plan may seem a wicked waste, but many 
shrewd raisers find themselves justified in following it, 
believing that the room is more valuable to the pullets, 
than the cockerels are valuable in themselves. Where 
there are not too many, they pay very well for family 
use, when about twelve weeks old. 



68 

Culling, and especially culling the females, is the 
most difficult work — that is, the most difficult to do as 
it should be done — that falls to the lot of the poultry 
woman. She who culls is sure to give many a speci 
men the benefit of the doubt, and this is fatal to the high- 
est profit. If you would make money from the layers, 
cull severely; cull out the stunted, the deformed, those 
that are under age, those that show lack of vigor in 
any way, those that are poor eaters, those that are 
cranky and full of whims, those that will submit to 
being crowded without crowding back again! But 
you will say, " They may lay towards Spring." Yes : 
but the others will lay enough better without them to 
make it all up, and your feed bill will be, perhaps, not 
over two -thirds as large. I think this is about the 
proportion that should be culled from nearly every ex - 
isting flock. 






THE FIRST SEASON WITH FANCY 

POULTRY. 



*y I *7^fK ^^^ giving an Institute lecture on poul - 

II I try last winter ' * said : " The best wav 

^ir^rV I see to account for the better luck 
(?) which women have in poultry rais- 
ing, is to charge it to that old-fashioned word 'obey' 
in the marriage service. Women have gotten into so 
confirmed a habit of obedience that they can follow in- 
structions implicitly. The masculine temperament 
leans away from this ; the masculine mind hates the 
day of small things ; the masculine mind is more prone 
to distrust." I hope you who read and who are look- 
ing forward to fancy poultry, will have proven my 
words before this, by following instructions as to pre- 
liminary study of breeds, standard, and principles of 
work, or that you surely will do so before beginning. 
The Winter previous to the first season may well have 
had its spare time devoted to this preliminary study. 
Having decided upon the breed best suited to your 
pleasure and your circumstances, it remains for you to 
decide whether to start with birds, or with eggs which 
two or three common hens may hatch. Octave 
Thanet, the famous fiction writer, in her humorous 
story of "The Blazing Hencoop," says: "We are 
only sure that whichever you try, you will wish you 
had tried the other. If we are trying eggs, we are 



70 

sure that it is better to pay $10 for a healthy, well- 
behaved trio of fowls, than to take one's chances on 
eggs at $3 a dozen, and possibly have only three or 
four out of a setting strong enough to break the shell. 
While, if we are trying fowls, we do not see the use of 
paying such prodigious sums for a White Plymouth 
Rock cock that has his spirit beaten out of him by a 
half-way Game cockerel the first day of his arrival, 
and dies of a broken heart the following Summer." I 
suspect that this close hitting of the mark resulted 
quite as much from the author's knowledge of human 
nature, as from her knowledge of the fowls. But it is the 
human nature , and especially the woman nature — daring, 
nay, almost delighting to take risks , that insures the difh - 
culties mentioned in both directions. For it is lack of 
care in finding a breeder whose eggs are known to be 
good, and to hatch well, and whose mature stock is 
known to be vigorous, that causes the failures, and 
vexation of spirit, so common at the end of the first 
season. Do not buy birds of a distant breeder, and 
pay heavy charges on them, unless you know that his 
stock will be good. Do not buy eggs, unless you have 
good reason to believe that they are hatchable. The 
business habits of the owner of the birds, as evidenced 
by his advertisements and circulars, will give } r ou a 
very good clue to go by, if neither you nor your friends 
have positive knowledge. 

A frequent mistake made is in buying exhibition 
birds. The chief value of exhibition birds -outside the 
show room, is for advertising purposes. As members 
of your breeding yards, they may not prove worth as 
many cents as you will be tempted to pay dollars for 
them. Most breeders do not mate for breeding as they 
mate for exhibition; and if they did, they would not 



71 

use the inbred, and show -debilitated birds that are 
mated up for exhibition . Having found a breeder upon 
whose stock you can rely, it is best to have him mate 
for you a trio, or breeding yard for best results. These 
birds will not cost you so much as the show pen would 
have done, while the progeny is likely to be infinitely 
better. One of the first points to fix firmly in your 
mind is this : All operations in hatching and rearing 
fancy stock must be based upon small numbers. The 
incubator and the big brooder are a menace to your 
work from the start to the finish. If you have bought 
eggs to start with it is not the part of wisdom 
to risk the whole of them in one large lot ; neither 
after they are hatched will it ever be to the advantage 
of the chicks to place large numbers together. So long 
as a wry tail or a white feather disqualifies, so long 
must accidents be provided against. So long as the 
corner of a coop, or a lack of condition may cause the 
loss of a prize, so long must crowding be guarded 
against ; and so long as the annoying attentions of a 
six -weeks -old roosterkin, or a " scrap" between two 
half -grown cockerels may destroy the value of your 
show biids, so long must you watch with eagle eye for 
every sign of difficulty in every direction. 

You must have care about accidents ; you must have 
no crowding and fighting ; you must be absolutely cer- 
tain as to the safety of the flocks at night ; you must 
separate the sexes early ; you must give the best coop - 
ing, with the utmost care every way; and with all this 
care and this artificial straining after the survival of 
the fittest according to feather, there must be, also, 
care to keep as near natural conditions as possible, in 
order that you may have only the fittest in vigor. In 
feeding your way is easy. The best feed for the com- 



72 

monest chick that ever grew, when } r ou want it to do 
its level best, is not far from being the best feed for the 
most aristocratic daughter or son of a $200 imported 
pair. If you have learned the secrets of care and 
painstaking in feeding common chicks, you have only 
to apply them to your would-be prize winners. If 
not, you have only to study the formulas and directions 
for success with the commonest birds, and you have 
the knowledge, what to do for your high-priced stock. 

There are those who will tell you that an incubator - 
hatched chick can be told from one hatched in the 
natural way as long as it lives. Others will dispute 
this; but none will dispute the statement that the ut- 
most thrift ana vigor which you can assure your chicks 
by free range, and proper feed, will do more for them 
in the show room than aught else. Your birds must 
be well grown and vigorous that they may be grown 
up to standard weight, else here alone is enough dis- 
count to lose you every prize in every hotly -contesced 
show. And you must keep each generation up to 
weight, or, soon, you will have small chance of getting 
any of your birds up to weight. After your first lot 
of birds is carefully raised, your pride in them will 
cause you to be beset with the worst temptation of 
your poultry -raising career. You will want to show 
those birds ; and worse than that, you will want to be- 
gin to make big money by selling eggs from such beau- 
ties ! Let me beg of you to do neither during your 
second season. 

You may have birds that are quite well worth ex- 
hibiting, but you do not know enough about them yet ; 
and knowledge gained in the show room, while good, 
is expensive. Why should you waste mone}^ and time, 
and bring, criticism upon yourself in studying things 



> 
w 

• — ( 

♦=3 

r 

Q 
W 
O 

J/2 




75 

publicly which you might study privately at less ex- 
pense ? 

During the Winter following your first season of 
raising chicks you will have abundant time to study 
advertising, if you want a wide market, or to study 
systematic sales near home, if your market is to be 
there. If you are to make your business as wide as 
possible, you must study exhibiting, and preparing for 
exhibition. Poultry literature will tell you something 
about all these, and will give you a good foundation 
on which to build a fabric of common sense. You can 
begin to study advertising by taking up any paper, 
and noting which advertisements attract the eye quick- 
est, and when you have found this out, note how the 
wording of the matter attracts you. See whether 
words are wasted in saying things that do not affect 
you either way when you pose as a buyer. Ask some 
man his opinion of these advertisements; this will 
help you to find out whether it is' the attitude of the 
womanly mind, or the way the facts are put which 
makes them catch your attention. Study the adver- 
tisements of women who are in the business, and see 
whether they are hurting themselves and their trade 
by asking sympathy because they are women, rather 
than seeking sales because they have good stock. 
There is too much of this posing for sympathy ; though 
not so much, I am glad to say, in the poultry business 
as in some other lines of work which women have 
lately taken up. Your neighbors must be studied, you 
know ; because, even if you make sales abroad, you 
will want to sell all you can near by. You must first 
impress upon them firmly that you are not in the ex- 
change business ; and you must learn not to sell fertile 
eggs to the grocery, lest the woman two doors away 



76 

outwit you, and become a rival, at a cost of only fif- 
teen cents a dozen. Yet, if you have plenty of stock, 
you must learn to make concessions to your home 
trade, selling to near customers, perhaps, at half-price. 
You can generally afford to do this, for advertising, 
shipping baskets, packing, and time necessary to man- 
age the distant trade, have all a distinct money value. 
This refers, however, more to coming seasons, for you 
must remember that you have not yet bred anything. 
Before your second season, you must become pretty 
familiar with the science of breeding, as far as books 
and experts may give it to you. You will learn that 
while inbreeding is considered a necessity to fine 
feather, it is a dangerous one, and new blood is even a 
greater necessity to the best vigor. It is Scylla and 
Charybdis; the rock of inbreeding, on one hand, the 
rock of losing family characteristics on the other. You 
will learn that those who have the best success, inbreed 
all they dare, and when they must change, try to get 
blood from the same family line, but which has been 
changed by climate or conditions sufficient^ to answer 
for fresh blood. You will learn that some consider 
fresh blood a necessity every year, and you must learn 
that vigor is the one thing above all others essential to 
success. Fine feathers never appear on sickly birds, 
and condition, alone, counts enough to win the prize 
many times. 

And, alas, that it must be said! among the hardest 
part of your work will be learning to keep the gates 
shut; learning to make the fences high enough, and 
secure enough that the care of weeks and months shall 
not be thrown away in five minutes ! If a man goes 
near your poultry plant, he must be taught to shut the 
gates ! If the children help 3 r ou, as so often thev must, 



77 

it must be impressed upon them with care, again and 
again and again, that they are never to leave the gates 
open ! The first few months of fancy poultry keeping, 
though holding many pleasures, are, likewise, some- 
what harassing; and, small as it is, this matter of the 
gates is one of the chief reasons why you would better 
not attempt to advertise eggs during the first year or 
two. Surely you need to get the run of the business 
before hampering yourself too much with other peoples' 
ideas and expectations, and with their just demands 
after they have paid you hard cash, and their unjust 
demands if they think you are to be easily cheated. It 
is not a way wholly strewn with posies, this road to 
the beautiful land of fancy poultrydom. 



*V Mr 

ma 



CONFINEMENT, OR FREEDOM. 



/^■■^HE first, and the continuous thought of those 
/ \ who would make a success of poultry rearing 
^^|^ and keeping, must be for the vigor of the 
birds. It is such a common thing for those 
who discuss poultry to speak of vigor as necessary, 
that I think readers have come to consider it merely 
a stock assertion for effect. No greater mistake 
could be made. You will find that the person who 
has been longest in the poultry business is the one 
who will urge this point most strongly. If you do 
not believe it now, the work itself will force you to 
believe it. Nothing could be more foolish than for 
those who are extremely limited as to room to try 
to make that room count for more than it is worth by 
enlarging operations to any extent. For a regular 
business, a reasonable amount of room is a necessity ; 
sufficient, at least, for the proper rearing of the young 
stock. I believe it to be utterly impossible to rear 
chicks to vigorous maturity in large numbers, through- 
out successive seasons, and in close confinement. 
Please note the three points, and that I do not say to 
keep fowls, but "to rear chicks." And I mean chicks 
of vigorous constitution. 

Almost any woman who lives on a farm knows that 
the question of confinement or freedom is a serious one, 
even there, where there is abundance of room. Neither 



79 

the chicks in the garden, nor the garden in the chicks, 
seems to be thoroughly satisfactory. It may be argued 
that small chicks are a benefit to the garden, on ac- 
count of the insects which they destroy. That is true 
as far as it goes; but, unfortunately, the chick goes 
farther, and with a little age, becomes a destructive 
terror, beside which insects are nowhere ! The amount 
of stuff which even a small flock of chickens will de- 
stroy by mere daily trampling, if they do not scratch 
at all, is almost incredible. There is always friction, 
too, concerning the grain fields; and whatever the 
woman may think about it, on the general farm, scarcely 
a man lives who will not insist that the chicks and 
fowls destroy more than they eat, and eat more than 
they are worth. Suppose, instead of confinement or 
freedom, we say confinement with freedom. J A large 
enclosure, a grassy orchard, if possible, where fowls 
can range to a distance which satisfies them, may be 
enclosed, yet the birds will still have virtual freedom. 
One portion of this may be for the fowls, another for 
the young chicks. The greatest mistake which a novice 
friend of my own, has made — a man who has been ex- 
tremely careful to follow the best instruction— was in 
placing his young chicks in the same enclosure with 
his fowls, and that in a limited space. I went to take 
him an order for some of his chicks, (which were from 
very fine, fancy stock) and found that they had been 
so stunted in rearing as to be virtually ruined, so that 
I did not even hint that I had an order for him. 

If questions of space call for serious consideration 
on the farm, what is the case where room is limited? 
Simply that difficulties increase, not only in inverse 
ratio to the space, but in very much greater ratio. It 
is much more difficult to keep clean, more difficult to 



80 

provide the absolutely necessary room, more difficult 
to furnish the green food equally necessary. Indeed, 
we might well say that it is impossible to furnish 
growing green food in very close confinement, except 
for the youngest stock. By having a system of double 
yards, or a few movable netting hurdles, a certain 
amount of green food can be had growing, but it is an 
endless, and apparently thankless task to provide it; 
for the fowls swarm upon it like locusts, and leave a 
bare expanse in about as short a time. Once more, let 
me say that it is not wise to try to raise large flocks in 
small spaces. Even if there be a fair measure of suc- 
cess for two or three years, while the ground is com- 
paratively fresh, disease and disaster are almost sure 
to fall upon the flocks later. Confinement is so abso - 
lutely distasteful to almost all fowls that they will fret 
even at a bit of wire netting above them, though they 
could have the widest range under it. Even if they 
have seemed comfortable and happy in confinement, 
their almost wild glee, their jumping and flirting and 
stretching upon regaining liberty show clearly that 
they have felt the confinement, and that it must tell on 
them. 

Not a few, nowadays, are urging that fowls often do 
better — that is, that they lay more eggs — with moder- 
ate range than with free range. Confinement is a nec- 
essity, too, for the breeding stock during the breeding 
season, unless one be quite distant from neighbors, 
keeping but one breed. I have known fowls to mix 
and migrate from one farm to another, when the build- 
ings were nearly a quarter of a mile apart. Unless the 
poultry have things all their own way, each breed on 
a place by itself, and without limitations as to range, 
a stock of wire netting becomes one of the most treas - 



81 

ured necessities of the poultry keeper. Wire netting 
is now almost as cheap as laths, while it is often much 
more convenient. Wherever there are marauders, like 
cats or hawks, covered runs of netting for the tiny 
chicks render them absolutely safe. Fifty feet of wire 
net, inch meshed, and two feet wide, at roll prices, 
will cost one dollar. Nineteen feet of two -inch mesh 
net, six feet wide, to be used overhead will cost about 
forty -seven cents, at roll prices. This will make a run 
sufficient for forty or fifty chicks for the first three 
weeks, at least, or for two smaller flocks. It may be 
asked, " Why not use the one -foot width for the sides? 
or the three -inch mesh for the cover, because it is 
cheaper? ' ' The answer is — Because the chicks are less 
happy with the cover so low and close, until they have 
freed themselves by jumping through the meshes, which 
they will surely learn to do in a week or ten days' time. 

The woman does not live who can help falling in love 
with her wire netting, just as ,she loves her other 
"things," that is, utensils, conveniences, etc. But I am 
afraid the majority of women, being short of pocket 
money and capital till they get well started in the poul - 
try business, will buy only a few feet at a time. Let 
me urge you to buy by the roll, or half roll, if you 
possibly can ; it comes so much cheaper in the long 
run ; especially if ' ' the long run ' ' is made with the 
wire netting. 

The woman who buys wire netting needs to take her 
best stock of judgment with her when she goes to the 
store. Inch mesh makes a beautiful and desirable net- 
ting, but it costs more than twice as much as the two - 
inch mesh, and nearly three times as much as the 
ordinary style of three -inch mesh. The kind oftenest 
used, and usually most satisfactory, is that with two- 



82 

inch mesh, and dealers who offer you specially cheap 
prices may foist upon you a wire lighter than that 
which is considered standard. Such netting gets limp 
and out of shape almost at once, and the same is true 
of _ that with a very large mesh. If good judgment is 
necessary in buying wire netting, a full stock of good 
temper is more than equally necessary in putting it up. 
For such innocent stuff it is far more than usually ex- 
asperating. And if, being a woman, it becomes nec- 
essary for you to put up that netting with your own 
fair hands, let me warn you to expect that those same 
hands will be less fair when you get through. Also, 
that any man you may ask, who has been there, will 
tell you that it is impossible for one person, working 
alone, to put up wire netting. While not impossible, 
it is certainly exasperating to the highest degree, and 
you would better secure help, if there is any to be had 
within several miles. 

A six -inch board at the bottom of the yard, is, by 
men, considered a necessity; but let me tell you a 
womanly secret — you can make "hair-pins" by 
doubling heavy wire, using, say twenty -inch lengths, 
which will pin the netting to the ground very satisf ac - 
torily. I know this, for I invented them and have 
used them for several years. This is much cheaper 
than to use the boards at the bottom ; it also takes less 
work, and if you do not need the extra width which 
the boards give, you can get along without them, 
though, with a large system of yards, and capital 
enough, I would have them. The boards at the top 
are a snare, for they furnish just the place an out- 
going fowl wants to light upon. Beware of trying to 
cut down expenses by setting the posts too far apart. 
The netting does not stretch so easily as it would ap- 




LIGHT BRAHMA MALE. 



85 

pear to do, while, with the depravity of inanimate 
things, it sags with peculiar ease and delight. In 
building a six-foot fence, some have thought it better, 
and that a firmer fence was to be secured by using two 
three -foot widths, giving the two extra bound edges 
at the center. This is not the fact, unless the widths 
are lapped, in which case you lose some height in the 
fence. The two narrow rolls will cost more than the 
wide one, and without lapping you will find it virtu- 
ally impossible to stretch them so as to make a fowl - 
tight fence, without wiring the edges together; and 
when all is done, it will not look so well as the fence 
made from the wider net. The wide net is cheaper, 
but it is more difficult to handle, and probably it is 
this fact which makes people lean to the belief that the 
two narrow widths would be better, until they have 
tried it. 

Stretching the net properly is one of the tricks of 
the trade, which you will do well to learn early. It is 
a common belief that a woman can handle the whole 
world, animate and inanimate, with the aid of a broom 
stick. Wire netting is no exception to the generaL 
rule, and you will find the broom handle of greatest 
aid. By thrusting it through a mesh, and using the 
post as a sort of fulcrum to brace against, } 7 ou can 
draw the netting into very good shape with compara- 
tively small expenditure of strength. Small mesh re- 
quires a smaller stick, but it must be strong, and not 
too small. Altogether, the exercise with these sticks, 
and the satisfaction gained will be about equal to that 
inspired by the " glame sticks " of the most advanced 
Ralstonite. 

A few hurdles, or panels, to use for temporary yard- 
ing, are of the greatest convenience. If you prefer to 



86 

have the netting in shape to roll for storage, these ca^ 
be gotten up by stapling the netting to a series of 
sharpened stakes, two inches by one inch, and perhaps 
ten inches longer than the netting is wide. They need 
to be rather close together, as they give the only sta- 
bility which your fencing will have ; but when the3 r 
are driven into the ground firmly, you will have a 
fairly good and satisfactory fence for all temporary 
uses ; and wherever your fencing does not fit closely 
to the ground at any time, use the woman's privilege 
of putting in a " hair pin." 






^>1^ 



**v 



THE FIRST POULTRY-HOUSE. 



lyit^M HATKVER make -shifts have been made 
L i 1 to answer > an( i whatever plan you have 

^P^r^ followed, to get alone during the first 
hatching season, the maturing flocks, 
as Autumn approaches, demand a suitable place of 
shelter. If you will keep poultry, you must have a 
house for it. What will you ask of this house? 
Three things, at least, you will, or should demand of 
such a building ; and instead of weakening in these 
demands, through pressure of circumstances, you must 
so bend circumstances that these demands shall be met. 
For all ordinary work, I insist that the house shall be 
cheap. But the almost universal method is to ask first 
that it be cheap, and afterward that it shall be con- 
venient and serve its purpose well. I would reverse 
this order, and insist first, that it shall well serve the 
purpose for which it was built ; that it shall also be 
convenient, and afterward that it shall be cheap. 

Cheapness, as commonly understood, is not always 
economy. That which saves a few dollars at the out- 
set, at the cost of spending a half hour in labor daily, 
is absolute extravagance. This is especially the case 
where the labor has to be hired. The outgo of strength 
caused by inconveniences is also an expensive thing ; 
for if the care of poultry is to be added to the regular 
work of an already burdened woman, it may mean 



88 

doctor's bills in the near future, in spite of the often 
asserted — yes, and the real heathfulness of poultry 
keeping. I am afraid that many women have become 
so accustomed to inconveniences indoors, that they 
will feel it almost necessary to have things inconveni- 
ent outside. I believe it is possible to do almost any 
work in about one -third of the average time taken, if 
a sharp eye is had to making things perfectly conveni - 
ent to do such work. 

Now, how shall one build? While there are still a 
few who believe in the high house, with plenty of 
breathing space, the almost universal leaning, now, is 
toward a long, low house, preferably with a scratch- 
ing -shed. A long and narrow house always costs 
more to enclose than a square one, other things being 
equal. But a square house, with small pens, seems t& 
necessitate that some of the pens shall be upon the 
side that is away from the best sunshine, and chiefly 
for this reason the long, low house seems to be con- 
tinually growing in popular favor. Houses built on 
the scratching -shed plan may follow this popular idea 
by alternating the roosting -rooms and scratching - 
sheds. Or, if the builder is opposed to having many 
fowls under one roof, double houses may be built, 
having the two roosting -rooms at the ends, the two 
scratching -sheds together in the center, or vice versa. 
The latter plan makes the roosting -rooms a little 
warmer, but the expense of building a little greater. 
There is a plan of building, not much in use, which 
has, it seems to me, many points in its favor. It calls 
for a building wide enough for two rows of pens, and 
a wide alley through the center. This central alley is 
made wide to partially serve the purpose of storage - 
room and work -shop, and the extra sunshine needed 



89 

in what may be called the back row of pens, is gained 
by the use of a modification of the "Monitor top" 
building. In the rear row the pens extend higher than 
the front ones, at the ridge, and at this point windows 
are inserted to throw light and sunshine into the rear 
pens. 

Poultry -house partitions are a cause of great vexa- 
tion of spirit to the average owner. Not long ago I 
saw them in one house — a very large one — made solid- 
ly of lath ; that is, without the usual spacings between 
the lath. This was considered a cheap form of parti- 
tion, and a good one, because it cut off chances for 
draughts. The partition most favored consists of solid, 
light boarding for two or three feet at the bottom, with 
lath, or wire netting above. One shrewd poultry 
keeper has evolved a novel plan for doing away with 
the boards, which have been considered necessary in 
order to hin der the fighting of neighboring, yet rival 
cocks. This new plan was, merely to use a double 
partition of netting at the bottom, the space between 
the two widths of netting being perhaps two inches. 
Through this double meshing, the birds can not injure 
each other; while it has some advantages, from the 
fact that the fowls being able to see one another are 
all acquainted, and may thus be changed when neces- 
sary from one pen to another without fear of their 
"scrapping," and inflicting mutual injuries. The two 
widths of meshing, at roll prices, are scarcely more 
expensive than boarding; possibly not so costly, in 
some localities. 

Ventilation is a question on which, perhaps, there is 
more differing than upon any other one point connect- 
ed with practical poultry work. On the one hand it is 
argued, by successful experts, that in cold climates 



90 

sufficient air will get into any building for ventilation, 
no matter how tightly it has been constructed. How 
air can enter a building from which man has made his 
utmost effort to exclude it, they do not explain. It is 
my impression that they mistake cold for " air;" and 
the morning visit to one of these low and close -shut 
houses, unless the owner is suffering from a modified 
form of roup, known to human beings as "cold in the 
head," so that she can not detect odors at all, will dis- 
close the fact that such " air" as there is, is most cer- 
tainly very foul air, heavy with foul (fowl) exhala- 
tions. 

Those who argue for ventilation assert that fresh air 
— air that is really fresh — is the most urgent need of 
the fowl kind; and they are right, though they may 
not know that the reason for this is that fowls breathe 
a great deal more air during a given period than do 
human beings. And, indeed, their opponents do not 
disagree with them as to the necessity of fresh air, but 
as to how much from outside is necessary to constitute 
it fresh enough. A physician standing high in his 
profession, and holding State offices in addition, told 
me that it was not floor space the fowls needed, as is 
the common idea, so much as breathing space and 
fresh air. He stated that he had kept 600 fowls 
through an entire Winter, in a building having 
scarcely more than floor space enough to give them 
standing room, and in perfect health, simply by using 
a thorough and perfect system of ventilation. The 
principle is, to admit plenty of air at a point near the 
bottom of the house, and give it egress above; but in 
such a way that there shall be no draught, but con- 
stant diffusion and motion of the confined air. It is 
partly because the subject of ventilation is such a diffi- 



91 

cult one, that the scratching -shed has been such a help 
to poultry raisers ; for here they are certain of fresh 
air, at least half the time. 

Not long ago, an addition to the poultry literature of 
the day described what was supposed to be a 
"woman's poultry -house." The idea underlying it 
was, that a woman's long skirts unfitted her to enter a 




Fiy.l. 




FIG. 1.— XESTS. FIG. 2.— ROOSTING LADDER, 



92 

building where there was necessarily more or less filth, 
and the building described was to be made so that she 
should not need to enter it. It was small enough to 
be cleaned from the outside through a drop door, the 
floor being raised, not to necessitate too much back- 
breaking work. Possibly this might do for very small 
work with a very few fowls ; but the poultry mistress 
who did not enter the houses could hardly have suffi- 
cient grasp of her business to insure success. It is 
absolutely necessary to have acquaintance with one's 
fowls, and to know what is going on among them. 

Perhaps the best way to adapt a poultry -house to a 
woman's needs is to make certain of absolute simplicity 
and convenience in its inside fittings. The necessities 
are roosts and their platforms, nest -boxes, drinking - 
vessels and feed-troughs, grit and shell containers, and 
dust -baths. Whatever is on the floor soon comes to 
be a nuisance, for it is disturbed and fouled by the 
birds, besides being in the way. Nest -boxes are 
better at a little height than if placed upon the floor. 
A feed trough, which the fowls can not overturn, or 
roost upon, or make foul in any other way, may con- 
sist of a single board, with a furring of lath about the 
edge. This may be hinged to the side of the building, 
about eight inches from the floor. Eight inches above 
it may be stapled a wire frame, a little wider than the 
board, and made like one leaf of a wire gridiron with- 
out the handle. When the hens are feeding, the board 
is at right angles to the wall, the wire frame dropped 
at an angle over it. After the fowls have finished, 
both trough and frame are raised and hooked to the 
wall. Such a trough needs very little cleaning, for the 
average hen does this part of the work very well ! A 
somewhat similar frame and shelf against the wall may 



> 

4— 1 
•H-t 

r 
<: 

■» 

r 
u 

w 
d 





95 




THE POULTRY-HOUSE ONE WOMAN FINDS GOOD, WITH 
SCRATCHING-SHED ATTACHED. 

hold the drinking -vessels; though it is a matter of 
economy of time, where there is a series of houses, to 
manage so that one large vessel serves for two pens. 
These wall shelves, as described, may need a little 
support below, which may be furnished by attached 
legs, or by a small box under them, if this does not 
disturb the owner. 

A modified ladder is the best form of roost with 
which I am familiar. I do not mean the old style of 
ladder roost, one portion of which is higher than the 
other, but something like a ladder laid horizontally. 
On this the hens can roost compactly, yet without 
crowding, especially if the " rounds", which are flat, 
are a little wider than the sides of the ladder, rising 
above the sides, and seeming to divide them into 
spaces. If the roosting platform, when in position, is 



96 

set so that it is slightly sloping toward the front, it is 
far more easily cleaned. Both the roosting frame and 
its platform may be arranged so as to be put up out of 
the way during the day. With this last arrangement, 
however, the roosting platforms do not serve as a hid- 
ing place for the nest -boxes; but an advantage is 
gained in having these boxes farther from the lice, so 
liable to infest a roost. A series of boxes may be 
placed on a level against the side of the house, with 
sufficient space to allow the hens to enter at the back. 
A single drop -door at the front gives the care-taker 
easy access to all the eggs. 

The dust -bath box is the one thing that occupies the 
floor, and in the sunniest spot. It should be moder- 
ately large and deep, so that the hens can really wallow 
in it; and tobacco, or some disinfectant may be mixed 
with the dust to make it more effective. With these 
fittings, it takes but little time to care for the houses, 
a large proportion of the vexations of poultry keeping 
are avoided, cleanliness is insured, and all the work 
made comparatively easy. 

A style of house which I know to be giving good 
results in one woman's hands embodies the favorite, 
modern scratching -shed idea. The figures show 
several views of it. The roosting -room is smaller than 
the scratching -shed, and the door serves to close the 
shed during the day, while, by swinging inward, it 
closes the roosting -room at night. At night, also, a 
curtain drops in front of the roosts, and another pro- 
tects the shed from incoming storm. The large venti- 
lator at the front is placed above the height of the 
fowls' heads when they are on the floor, and is covered, 
on the inside, by a drop -board twice as wide as and 
eighteen inches longer than the opening. Opened and 



97 

hooked at any angle except a right angle, this board 
deflects all air more or less strongly toward the roof, 
whence it diffuses. The roosting-room has a board 
floor. 

A modified form of the scratching -shed idea is shown 
in another figure. The peaked -roof structure stands 
gable end to the sun, which end is partly boarded, 
partly covered with netting. This end forms the 
"shed" which is partitioned off from the rear of the 




A HOUSE WHICH GIVES GOOD RESULTS. 

house, the latter being the roosting-room. A door 
between stands wide during the day, to be closed at the 
owner's option at night. The house is floored through- 
out, loosely ceiled overhead, and filled in with straw, 
which those who use say keeps the house both dry and 
warm. It does good work. 



FEEDING FOR EGGS. 



^^fc^HAT anybody can feed a hen, may be true; 
/ I but that anybody can feed her so as to make 
^^1^ her produce a maximum number of eggs at 
a minimum expense, is far from being true. 
To do this needs study and common sense. These, 
combined, will ensure what is known as scientific feed- 
ing, that is, common sense feeding for best results. In 
order to be led to do a thing properly, it is necessary 
for most minds to know why it is to be done as directed. 
In turning over the pages of the agricultural papers, 
in search of the corner known as the Woman's Depart- 
ment, your eye has been caught by such expressions 
as "Wide ration", "Narrow ration", 'Feeding 
formula ", " Percentage of waste matter", etc., and 
you have thought them very dry stuff. Politics and 
percentage are utterly at variance with woman's mind, 
say the men ; but the woman who is to raise poultry 
at a profit must learn to make percentage a part of her 
daily life. The percentage of loss or of profit, the per- 
centage of cheap food to dear food in the rations , the per - 
centage of fat to lean, which her birds lay on at different 
periods, the percentage of hustling layers to lazy dead- 
heads in her flock, will be matters of vital importance 
to her ; matters which will determine whether her purse 
is to bulge out with fatness, or to be as flat as though 
a whole freight train had run over it. 



99 

As a bit of encouragement, let me say at once that 
the woman in the poultry business has an inherent 
advantage when it comes to the question of feeding. 
To provide food for somebody, or something, is her 
natural business. A business, too, in which she has 
practiced all her life. If she has studied the matter of 
feeding her family for best results ( as no woman can 
be excused for not doing) the matter of wide and nar- 
row rations need be but as a b c to her. That which 
makes it easy from the first, is the fact that the feeding 
ration for eggs is very nearly the same in proportion 
as the food which she must set before her family for 
best nutritive results. Wheat is the one grain that is 
nearly perfect, and it contains the muscle makers, 
phosphates, etc., in about one -fourth the quantity of 
its fat formers. The term "Wide ration", as com- 
monly used, has reference merely to the proportion of 
muscle makers and fat formers in any ration under 
consideration. If there is eight times as much fat- 
forming material as of muscle -making material, the 
ration is wide. If there is four times as much of the 
fat formers as of the muscle makers, the ration is nar- 
row. The division line must, of course, come some- 
where between, and any smaller proportion than that 
of one to six may, perhaps, come under the term 
li Narrow ration." 

The proportions of these two important elements in 
whole corn runs somewhere about one to seven. Hens 
are more fond of whole corn, as a rule, than of any 
other available food. Why then shall we not feed them 
very largely of this and save ourselves the brain wear- 
ing, and the work necessary to formulate and feed 
scientific rations? 

Because we must never forget that the hen is to be a 



100 




A MODIFIED SCRATCHING-SHED HOUSE. 



money maker for us. We shall require of her three 
things. Perhaps it will be fair to say that she will 
require of us three things ; that we furnish her food 
enough for life, that is to say, simply for running 
around; also food for growth, up to maturity; also 
food for egg making, as soon as she is sufficiently 
matured. If we do not provide food for eggs, that is, 
egg -producing food, the hen will not, can not return 
us eggs for the food which we have given her. A mere 
running -around ration may be wide; and corn, which 
produces the fat which running around uses up, may 
answer the requirements very well. 

Food for growth requires to be rich in muscle 
makers. And as eggs are also rich in these same ele- 
ments, which are technically known as proteins or 



101 

proteids, food for growth and food for eggs will need 
to be reasonably alike. Let us fix firmly in our minds 
the fact that the only source of proteins, (muscle- 
makers— egg -makers) in the body, or its products, is 
proteins in the food. Then we shall not commit the 
blunder of expecting the hen to return to us that for 
which she has never received the material. 

It is worth infinitely more to a woman — leaving the 
men out of the question — to learn for herself the prin - 
ciples of formulating rations than merely to press into 
use rations given by others, no matter how good these 
may be. One strong reason for this lies in the fact 
that a large percentage of the profit will depend upon 
using the foods easily available which are cheapest, 
that is, which are lowest in price, in proportion to 
the amount of protein they contain. This is the real 
test of cheapness in an egg -producing food. If you 
happen to live on the sea shore, where certain kinds of 
fresh clams, or fish, can be had by the bushel for 
nothing, your greatest expense for food is at once nul- 
lified, and every cent of this is to be added to your 
profit, because in any case you must feed to sustain life. 

The proportion of proteins to fat producers is not, 
however, the sole thing to be considered. Cheapness 
has been referred to, and we must consider, also, pala- 
tability and digestibility. For instance, beans are 
very unpalatable to hens; hence, although they are 
nearly one -fourth muscle makers, they are available 
only in degree, because the hens will not eat them, ex- 
cept under compulsion, or through stratagem. The 
beans must either be cooked, or else ground and used 
in such quantity that more pleasing food will cover 
their flavor; and thus, they may be made a part of 
the ration. It is fortunate that we do not need to use, 



102 

or are prohibited from using a very large quantity o? 
a food so concentrated as beans. 

Our chief sources of protein, easy available, are wheat 
and its products, oats, fish, beans and peas, milk and 
curd, and the various beef scraps and animal meals, be- 
sides clover hay and grasses. Of these, clover, oats, 
and wheat, contain less than the others. It is because 
curd is about one -fifth protein, that it forms so good a 
food for domestic poultry. 

There are two other ideas which I desire to get very 
firmly fixed in your mind, and the words which may 
represent them are ''Balance", and "Digestive co- 
efficient " . " Balance ' ' refers partly to the proper pro - 
portion of muscle makers and fat formers before noticed, 
and also to a proper proportion of concentrated food, to 
food containing waste. Water is in one sense waste, and 
most foods contain this. But there must, also, be 
bulky waste, in order that the digestive functions may 
go on properly. As a rough rule, it may be said that 
grains and meats are concentrated, vegetables and fod- 
ders are bulky. 

The " Digestive co -efficient " may sound like a hard 
thing to tackle. But the woman who is properly 
grounded in percentage will find it simple enough. 
Nearly all foods have a certain proportion of indigest- 
ible substance. The digestible co -efficient is nothing 
more nor less that the percentage of digestibility. For 
instance, suppose that a food is twenty per cent pro- 
tein, and the digestive co -efficient of the proteins in 
that food is eighty per cent. This means that eighty 
per cent of the twenty per cent of proteins is digestible. 
That is, sixteen per cent of the whole amount of the 
food under consideration is digestible protein. It is 
found simply by multiplying the whole amount of pro - 




H^ 



BIvACK MINORCA MAM. 



105 

tein by the digestive co -efficient. The composition of 
foods, and the various digestive co -efficients are found 
in tables, based on experiments already made. Gov- 
ernment hand-books supply these. If it happens that 
no tables of co -efficients are at hand, one may subtract 
about ten per cent from the grains as indigestible, this 
being a rough average. 

L,et us suppose that corn has been almost the sole 
food given by some one who wonders, with some sense 
of irritation, why her hens have not laid at all. Tables 
vary somewhat (as does corn, also) and the novice may 
be puzzled thereby. The chief cause, perhaps, lies in 
the fact that some tables are reckoned on stuffs in ordi- 
nary condition, or "air -dry", as it is called; others 
are calculated on the composition after the water has 
been extracted; that is, on "water free" substances. 
Corn has a ratio of from one to seven, or eight. This 
is far too wide for best results, when feeding for eggs. 
A ratio of one to four, or even narrower, is contended 
to be the best when all points are considered. The egg 
itself has a ratio, shell and all, of nearly one to two. 
But, considering that only a part of the food eaten goes 
to form the egg, a food with this ratio would not 
answer all the requirements. 

To bring the corn ration down to one to four, we 
might add cut clover, so popular as an egg food. But, 
to one pound of corn, we would need five or six pounds 
of clover, and this would be both unpalatable, and too 
bulky. We must look for something richer in protein 
and more concentrated. Here is where the meat -meals 
come in. If we took our pound of corn, another pound 
of the cut clover, and one pound of a meat -meal high 
in protein, we could bring the ratio at once below the 



106 

desired one to four. This, too, is injudicious, because 
one -third meat -meal is too heavy a ration. 

We must never forget that we are to use food stuffs 
that, while giving the required proportions and palata- 
bility, are the cheapest available to us. We must, 
then, make up our own rations. A young chemist 
near Boston, F. L,. Marion by name, figured out a 
ration from stuffs cheapest to him, and which gave 
excellent results. Circumstances may have led him to 
change it before this is written, even, but it may do as 
a sample. It is for 220 hens. Cut clover, 2 ^ pounds ; 
meat -meal, 8 pounds ; Chicago Gluten Meal, 4 pounds ; 
corn meal, ZY\ pounds. This was for the mash. The 
night feed was: Wheat, 6 pounds; corn, 1 pound; 
barley, 1% pounds; buckwheat, 1% pounds. I think 
the ratio of the mash is about one to two, or a little 
less ; that of the grain feed, one to seven ; the average, 
nearly one to four, calculated air -dry. This is rather 
heavy feeding of meat, when given every day. Per- 
sonally, I should not venture to feed so heavily, with 
my present experience ; but it brings the eggs. 

Iyinseed meal is another source of much protein, and 
often takes the place of meat. A German laying 
ration, calculated for 100 hens, looks to cheapness, and 
leaves out both meat and linseed, getting its protein 
from malt sprouts and bran. It is composed of : Malt 
sprouts, 5 pounds; bran, 10 pounds; potatoes, 10 
pounds. Simple enough, easy to get, and correct in 
ratio. I do not know the source of this and can not 
give due credit, but it is vouched for by a State 
Experiment Station. 



107 



THE EMBRYO CHICK AT TESTING 

TIME. 



^ya/HE practice of testing eggs is gaining very 
/ 1 rapidly in this country. But there are still 
^Jr many to whom it is unknown, or who look 
upon it as an intricate matter, quite be- 
yond them. As a matter of fact, however, with a 
simple pasteboard tube, and a study of eggs under 
incubation, any one can learn to test them, even 
without instruction. But unquestionably, a little 
help from those who have gone ,before smoothes the 
way, and hastens the worker's acquisition of the 
desired knowledge and experience. Concerning the 
testing tube, two points are essential : It must be 
opaque, and it must be of such size at the end farthest 
from the eye that the egg, laid sidewise against the 
opening, completely shuts out the light. In making 
such a tube, by rolling paper over a cylinder, it is best 
to fit the opening with an average -sized egg before the 
tube dries. The learner should begin with white - 
shelled eggs, if possible. The deep brown -shelled 
ones are much more difficult to test, and the work must 
be done at a later stage. With white -shelled eggs, 
after a little experience, one can tell pretty accurately 
on the fifth day, although the seventh or eighth shows 
the changes that have gone on in the egg much more 
distinctly. 



108 

I know one worker who often tests eggs by holding 
them up to a knot-hole in one of the barn boards, when 
the sun is striking full upon it. One needs no better 
way, but as knot-holes are not always handy, a lamp 
is commonly used. If it has a reflector, so much the 
better. The stronger the light, the earlier and the more 





A STRONG FERTILE EGG. 



A WEAK OR IMPERFECTLY 
FERTILIZED EGG. 





A STALE EGG. 



THE AIR SPACE ON THE 
16TH DAY. 



109 

easily can the work be done. One may test in fair 
light on an ordinary sunny day without a lamp, mak- 
ing sure only that the tube with its egg is between the 
eye and the light, the latter striking squarely on the 
egg. Two things will greatly aid the learner in his 
study ; one of these is to compare the eggs to be tested 
with a perfectly fresh egg whenever there is any doubt. 
The other is, to break out incubated eggs, at various 
stages, to find out how they look inside, noticing the 
position of the chick in the egg, etc. For instance, 
in the very early stages, the part which is the head is 
downward; later, the chick turns on its side, and lies 
crosswise of the egg } through a comparatively long 
period; while, toward the last, it again turns, so that 
its head is toward the broad end of the egg. 

On breaking out an egg about five days incubated, 
it will be noticed that the chick, so far as it is developed, 
spreads over one side of the yolk, chiefly a network of 
veins. If we are looking at this chick while within 
the shell, the position in which we hold the egg will 
make considerable difference as to our apprehension of 
its actual state. The general rule to be laid down is, 
that an infertile egg is absolutely clear, while a fertile 
one is opaque. But this opacity varies greatly, both 
as to degree, and as to the portion of the egg which it 
covers. Looking at the egg five days incubated, the 
learner may think it clear, and lay it aside with a sigh. 
A second look, however, at the other side of the egg 
might show it quite decidedly clouded. Thus, it is 
impossible to be sure that an egg at this stage is infer- 
tile without looking at it from all sides. The reason 
for this is quickly seen when we remember that in the 
broken egg, the developing chick, at this stage, covered 
but one side of the yolk. But of this much one may 



110 

always be certain : Whenever the egg shows any 
change from a perfectly clear condition, it has been fer- 
tile, and the fertile germ has begun to develop. It may 
have died, but life has certainly been there. 

There must be in connection with this period quite a 
little study of fresh eggs of the various shades of color ; 
otherwise, the difference made by the brown shell may 
be taken for the opacity caused by life within. The 
fresh egg } however, or the infertile egg early in the 
period of incubation, is exactly alike throughout. 
Even the air-space at the large end does not show. 
Very soon after the chi2k begins to develop this air- 
space, then always clearer than the rest of the egg, can 
be detected by a sharp eye. It shows more and more 
plainly as the embryo solidifies and the opacity be- 
comes more dense. 

When it comes to pricing fancy stock, it is essential 
to know the Standard. The woman who breeds fancy 
stock, in order to work intelligently, must either hire a 
judge to score her birds each year, or else must learn 
to be a poultry " judge " herself, so far as the breeds 
she raises are concerned. The cheapest way, perhaps, 
is to engage a good judge to spend some time in her 
yards, both scoring birds, and teaching her how to 
score. One can not be an independent breeder without 
this knowledge. "Points" add to price every time; 
and when almost at the top, even half -points add dol- 
lars to the selling value of the specimen. The Standard 
says that birds must score ninety points in order to 
receive a first prize; eighty -five points to receive any 
prize at all. There are a dozen or more sections in the 
common method of scoring, and a bird that happens to 
be defective one point in each of these sections will 
scarcely be able to much more than reach the eighty- 



Ill 

five points necessary to be entitled to even the lowest 
prize. Exhibition value, as a rule, determines selling 
value. 

Where competition is hot, the difference in values 
between the three winners is often covered by a point, 
or a point and a half. Hence these small variations in 
value must add largely to the price. The prices for 
males are always higher than those for females of the 
same breed, being often nearly double. The Mediter- 
raneans have the lowest values, the medium -sized 
birds next, the heavy breeds being rated the highest. 
This is a general reference to the best -known breeds, 
and is not intended to apply to freaks, nor to varieties 
not popular. The Plymouth Rock, too, may be con- 
sidered as a slight exception to the general rule, as the 
difficulty of breeding it to the choicest barrings renders 
the price of phenomenal specimens exceptionally high. 

Knowing the .number of points which a specimen 
will score, any woman is in a position to put prices 
upon her birds in a way that shall be satisfactory to all 
who understand the proper values of fancy fowls. A 
91 -point Brahma male, may be worth $5, say, and a 
94 -point bird $15 ; a half point added may shove this 
value up to $25; another half may double even this, 
while phenomenal specimens may be worth $100 to the 
buyer who really wants them. Looking at the Medi- 
terraneans, we shall find that 91 and 92 -point birds are 
worth from $3 to $5, if males. They may reach $10 at 
94 points, $15 at 95, and phenomenal cases may push 
the price up to $50. The range for determination of 
value between the lowest and highest prices here given, 
is only six points, all told, and the value of a specimen 
may, in certain cases, be doubled by increasing his 
weight, improving his condition, or properly preparing 
him for exhibition. 



112 

But it must not be forgotten that all these values 
named depend upon the state of the market. If there 
are buyers within your reach who are willing: to allow 
standard values to the birds they buy, the figures 
given are all right. If buyers near you can not con- 
ceive of a setting of eggs being worth over fifty cents, 
or the best of fowls worth more than $1 or $1.50, the 
first -named values are wholly imaginary. That is, if 
buyers near you have no conception of exhibition 
values, you can not sell them stock at prices which 
exhibition values alone make. You must sell at prices 
within their conception, or seek abroad for buyers who 
understand exhibition values. Arijd this is usually 
done by advertising. 

Proper preparation of the fowls for exhibition may 
mean the capture of the best prize, when without this 
preparation the specimen might have not even a chance 
for the lowest prize. Certainly no one is so well 
qualified to do this preparatory work as are women 
who know all the general details of washing, of feed- 
ing, etc. The best condition and the best weight are 
points more apt to be overlooked by those unused to 
detail, and hence it may occur that the winning of the 
prize depends upon these. Snowy plumage in a 
white fowl, and clear yellow color in the legs make a 
material difference in the score, and often depend 
solely on preparation. That is, the specimen may be 
all right, in reality, yet appear far behind its rival, 
because of soiled plumage, and dull legs. 

In washing fowls for exhibition, three tubs of water 
are usually used, the first two being warm, the third 
rather cold. Soap without rosin must be used. The 
bird to be washed is soaped, lathered, and left in this 
condition long enough for the soap to cut all gum, or 




PAIR BUFF ORPINGTONS. 



115 

adhering substance. The washing- is to be done by 
sousing, and by gentle rubbing in the direction of the 
feathers, thoroughly. The soap is removed from the 
plumage in the second tub, while in the third, the 
plumage is blued very slightly, as one would blue 
clothing in the wash. A little too much bluing will 
bring the whole operation to naught. A room with 
sanded floor, or with clean straw, the temperature at 
100 degrees, is best for drying the birds. They must 
have room to shake and flirt, and get the feathers in 
good fluffy condition. 

The legs, as well as the feathers, must receive con- 
siderable care. If afflicted with scaly leg, specimens 
may be doctored some weeks before the exhibition. 
Crude petroleum will cure the affliction without in- 
juring the color of the legs, as does kerosene. Later, 
if the legs are soiled, they must be lathered and 
brushed, and the way a yellow leg may be evolved 
from a dull one, by this process, and by cleaning the 
scales, as one would clean one's finger-nails, is a 
revelation, when seen for the first time. When the 
men who win are not ashamed to give close attention 
to these points, it surely behooves the woman who 
would gain prizes on fancy stock, to bring to bear 
upon the process of preparation, all her care of detail, 
her patience, her judgment, and her ingenuity. They 
will be needed. With feather -legged specimens, 
different care must be exercised. Much closer watch 
must be kept upon them constantly, as they are far 
more easily attacked by scaly leg. Preventive, or 
curative treatment must be more careful, as drastic 
treatment with kerosene and the like may remove the 
feathers, and ruin, at least temporarily, the exhibition 
value of the bird. 



116 

It is the part of wisdom, always, to remove broken 
plumage, except when nearing show time. If pin- 
feathers are broken, or crushed to bleeding, the feathers 
will come in discolored, and spoil the specimen. Such 
feathers may be removed, and nature will replace them 
with the true plumage. Womanly ingenuity may 
devise many methods of manipulating combs, to bring 
them to perfection, as they are very easily trained. 
Such work is to be done in the growing season, of 
course. Near the exhibition time, gloss may be added 
to such plumage as requires it by wide grass range, 
and free use of grit, and by feeding some sun -flower 
seed, and whole corn enough to induce laying on 
of fat. 




DUCKS AND GEESE. 



/^^P O MUCH has been said about the money in 
V4^ ducks and geese, that the public at large has 
^^W been led to believe them much more profitable 
than hens. Possibly it is to the interest of 
duck breeders on a large scale to foster this belief, 
and there is no sort of doubt that there is money in 
ducks. Still one is far safer in figuring on averages, 
than on highest prices named. Ducks will consume 
a large amount of cheap feed, making use of vege- 
tables quite largely, instead of grains. But it is also 
true that a duck will eat about twice as much as a hen 
during the year. Thus it is quite likely that, except in 
certain neighborhoods, where feed especially adapt- 
ed to ducks is very cheap, the feed bill for the ducks 
will be higher in the end than that for the same num- 
ber of hens. 

Admitting, however, that extra cheapness will bal- 
ance extra quantity, so that feed bills are about the 
same, what is the truth as regards the value of the 
products? It is frequently asserted that ducks will 
lay equally well with the hens. But if you can get 
an expert duck raiser to give you the facts in an aside 
talk, he is quite likely to tell you that he does not get 
as many eggs per year as the generally claimed aver- 
age. The earliest eggs are quite sure to be infertile, 
and useless for hatching purposes, while the Mid -sum- 



118 

mer ones, also of little value for hatching, have no de- 
mand as market eggs. On the other hand, it may be 
said in favor of ducks, that they may be kept in inex- 
pensive shelters, and that the product of young 
market stock, reaching salable age at so early a period 
as ten or twelve weeks, allows of money being turned 
over very quickly. This is a business man's idea of 
successful, profitable handling of any article of sale. 

Diseases, too, so trying, and so fatal to the hopes of 
many a chicken raiser, are almost unknown among 
ducks. Occasionally we hear of some peculiar fatality 
attacking flocks of ducklings and sweeping them from 
the face of the earth with lightning-like rapidity. In- 
vestigation would probably show that in a majority of 
such cases no provision had been made for shade, the 
ducklings being attacked by something like sunstroke, 
this occurring especially after lack of water for drink- 
ing. 

Shelters for adult ducks are of the plainest and sim- 
plest kind, the roof being the most important part. 
They need to be well windowed, for admission of air; 
and well bedded, for the convenient removal of excre- 
ment. Ducks are very dirty, and difficult to clean 
after; and the woman who had to take care of her own 
fowls would probably find this one argument of suffi- 
cient force to keep her out of the duck business. If 
she went into it largely, so that this work could be 
given to men, it might not be so objectionable. Some 
duck -houses are made with cement floors, which can 
be cleaned with hose. Duck -yards are largely ranged 
on steep slopes, running down to streams, where the 
natural fall and flushings of rains will keep them more 
or less cleanly. It is quite customary to make the houses 
in the long, shed style, with wide pens, because thus, 




PEKIN DUCKS. 



121 

the yards may be wider. Rather wide yards are al - 
most a necessity; ducklings and ducks are so easily 
frightened that unless there is plenty of room, a sud- 
den alarm may cause the whole flock to dash itself 
blindly against the yard divisions, often with great in- 
jury. I^arge raisers make it a practice to keep the 
duck -houses and yards well lighted during the night, 
to avoid injuries from alarms. 

Concerning the rearing of ducks without water ex- 
cept to drink, I talked with one of the largest and 
most successful duck raisers of the country. The re- 
ply to my direct inquiry was this : " While they can 
get along without water for bathing purposes, I be- 
lieve it is as necessary for a duck to swim, as for a hen 
to scratch, and an ill sight to see is a flock of wholly 
land -kept ducks." If one have land consisting of dry 
knolls or slopes, running down to a good water front, 
and have access to cheap food stuffs, and a good 
market, there certainly must be good pocket-money in 
raising ducks, — that is, the best ducks — either on a 
large, or a small scale. The feathers are no small 
item, and the almost certainty of raising the flock, 
(barring accidents and thieves) leaves the mind much 
more free from anxiety than is the case with most 
other lines of domestic poultry raising. But without a 
really desirable place to rear them, I consider it fool- 
ishness, especially for a woman, to attempt it. The 
foods given ducks are almost entirely soft, and the ex- 
crementitous matter is far more disagreeable in every 
way, than that from fowls. There is no use to mince 
matters, and talk only of the delights of poultry rais- 
ing. The woman who is raising poultry for pocket- 
money is not likely to have many men at her com- 
mand, at least until she has made pocket-money 



122 

enough to pay for their services ; and the natural habits 
of fowls, and the disagreeableness of vermin and dis- 
ease may as well be looked at in a practical light, at 
the beginning. They will certainly have to be met. 

On one of the most successful duck ranches in this 
country, one whose name appears in every poultry 
paper, the regular feed consists of equal parts of bran 
and meal, with five per cent of feed flour, ("Red 
Dog"), mixed with cut clover, so that the latter shall 
form one -fifth to one -third of the whole. This is sim- 
ply mixed with hot water, and is fed twice a day to 
the old stock. Whole grain is never given. For the 
first week, this mixed food is kept before the young 
all the time, and afterward is given four times a day. 
At a week old, five per cent of beef scrap is added, 
and this is gradually worked up to twelve or fifteen 
per cent. More than this does not prove to be an 
advantage. 

Some have said that there has been more improve- 
ment in Pekin Ducks — the sort mainly used — in the 
last five years, than in anything else except the White 
Wyandot. Formerly, more than half the meat was 
back of a line drawn up and down just in front of the 
legs. This meant much offal, and little breast meat. 
Breeders are working to reverse this; to get three- 
filths of the meat in front of the line, so that there 
shall be less waste. The great ambition of breeders 
of all sorts of live stock, is to produce the largest 
quantity of the best quality of product, with the 
least waste, and the largest net profit. It would 
be the part of wisdom for the fowl raiser to set this 
maxim well in mind, before beginning actual work. 
Breeders do actually set themselves at work scientific- 
ally to increase those parts of the frame which pro- 



123 

duce the best meat, and to breed off those which are 
too largely waste. The great trouble with the duck in 
the past, has been that there was so much waste that 
house -keepers could scarcely afford to use it. The 
duck with a "keel" in front, is the modern, popular 
duck. 

The goose, considered as a money maker, is far in 
advance of most poultry, provided only that one have 
sufficient range and water privilege for health and 
food purposes. The geese may simply be put out on 
waste pasture land, like cattle; but unlike cattle, they 
will utilize places that are swampy, and literally of 
no value for other purposes if they have also some 
high ground. The price of geese has kept up better 
than that of ducks, and when one has once learned the 
simple art of raising them, and of fattening them, she 
is mistress of a continual feeder to a slim pocket- 
book. Probably less capital is required for goose rais- 
ing than for any other branch of poultry work. There 
need be no buildings, and, in proper locations, few 
division fences ; and the fact that the same breeders can 
be used for ten or twelve years, insures that there shall 
be no outgo for new stock, unless the business is 
to be enlarged. The geese must, however, be coloniz- 
ed, each colony consisting of about four specimens, 
and these can be taught where their homes are ; but 
these homes need be nothing more than boxes, two or 
three feet square. The birds will eat boiled cabbage, 
turnips, or potatoes, mixed with corn -meal, and may 
be fed corn once a day, but are very light eaters where 
they have plenty of pasture. Rape may be sowed to 
furnish pasture for them, where this is lacking. 

Considerable difference of opinion has existed as to 
the best variety to raise for market. The Black 



124 

Africans, and the China Geese have their advocates. 
One of the most successful geese farmers says that the 
African has always brought as much money per 
pound, while producing more pounds of flesh. The 
balance of favor, however, probably belongs to the 
Embden. 

Fattening geese for market is almost a business by 
itself. Indeed, in New England, both men and women 
are carrying on this business in a money -making way. 
Large numbers of geese are bought, and taken to a 
central point to fatten. Bare and dry orchard ground 
is considered the best place for them. They are al- 
lowed water and all the food they will eat, but no 
green stuff while fattening, as this changes the charac- 
ter and appearance of the flesh, making it yellow, 
and spoiling the sales. They are fed on a mixture of 
scraps and meal, stirred up with boiling water, with 
sharp sand added. They must be fattened before 
twelve weeks old, for green geese, as after this period 
they begin to shed, and will scarcely fatten till the end 
of the season. Stories are told of $75 to $80 income 
from one pair of breeders. 

Expert geese breeders say that with care one need 
as soon think of losing a colt as of losing a gosling. 
A colony of four should give, with careful treatment, 
ninety goslings averaging nine pounds each, prices of 
which run from twenty -five to eighteen cents, usually. 
The number mentioned will bring in over $35 to 
each goose, at the lowest price. But it should be re- 
membered that this is expert work. Good goslings 
have been raised on nothing but good clover rowen, 
soaked, and mixed with the mash. The eggs can be 
hatched in incubators, but they are really too large 
for the ordinary incubator, as they are brought too 




PAIR EMBDEN GEESE. 



127 

near the heat. It will not do to try to hatch them in 
the same drawer with hens' eggs, on account of the 
difference in size. 

The knack of the expert picker is a thing to view ■ 
with admiration, but to strive after rather hopelessly. 
Years ago, when there was a general round-up of the 
whole family on the day for duck killing, sixty ducks 
was thought a good day's picking for a family of five. 
Now, expert pickers average from forty to sixty a day, 
each, and stories are told of occasional phenomenons 
who can pick 100 green geese or more in a day. At 
these latter stories, the knowing ones lift their brows. 
Mr. Pollard, of duck fame, told me that he had never yet 
seen a man who could pick sixty ducks in ten hours 
and do it well. This picking is an art, but it is an art 
practiced very differently from that of olden times. 
The birds are killed by sticking in the mouth , and stun - 
ning with a blow on the head, when the picker begins 
work at once. At his right is a bbx for the feathers, 
and near him, a bucket of water, into which his swift - 
flying fingers are frequently dipped. With the head of 
the bird held between his knee and the picking box, 
while its legs are held strongly with the left hand, his 
right hand slips up and down the carcass, back and 
forth, back and fourth, feathers and down apparently 
sticking to his fingers as they move. As your eyes 
follow along, you see the clear white flesh appearing, 
and before you think he has begun, fairly, the specimen 
is picked clean! It looks easy, but after you have 
tried it, your admiration for the expert picker will 
grow apace. Sometimes, if there are many pin- 
feathers, the carcass is shaved with a sharp knife. 



TURKEYS FOR POCKET-MONEY. 



^^fc/HK story of many a woman's attempt at poul- 
/ I try raising is a story of disease, loss, and 
^^1^ failure. It goes without saying that no 
pocket-money can accrue from these. Yet 
turkey raising is a most tempting field for the woman 
who lacks pocket-money but has the run of broad 
acres, because it can be entered upon with almost no 
capital. One may raise turkeys with no buildings at 
all, and thus the chief call — for capital — is unheard 
in this line of the work. It has been said that there is 
absolutely more money in turkey raising than in any 
other legitimate business. This extreme statement 
certainly means that it is a money -making art. Yet 
it must be said that almost no other branch is so diffi- 
cult to those not wise in turkey lore. The essentials 
to success, so far as the worker is concerned, are three : 
close observation, study of difficulties, and good judg- 
ment. Contrary to the general idea, good judgment 
is not so much a birthright as an acquirement. It 
is based directly, in a majority of cases, upon close 
observation and large experience. 

The study of poultry raising, like that of most other 
things, consists in a study of cause and effects. The 
successful turkey raiser is the one who has studied the 
causes of fatality, and learned how to avoid them. 
The losses in turkey raising are chiefly among the very 
young poults. The causes of these losses may be 



129 

roup, gapes, lice, dampness, close confinement, or 
bowel trouble. This last may come either from de- 
bility, or from injudicious feeding. ''Debility" is a 
very indefinite term. Debility may be caused by 
inbreeding, by lice, by dampness, or by close confine- 
ment. Hence, in one sense, we might say that bowel 
trouble may be caused by any one of these. On the 
other hand, debility may be regarded as the cause, 
indirectly, of nearly all these fatalities, from the fact 
that it renders the bird an easier prey to whatever 
may attack it. Gapes and lice are among the worst 
enemies of young turkeys, but these may be largely 
avoided by keeping the young stock wholly aloof from 
the rest of the poultry. This will apply partly, also, 
to roup. But roup may be a matter of contagion, or 
it may be merely a matter of quarters, and of condi- 
tions. Strong winds, following exposure to soaking 
rains, are the chief producing causes of roup, when the 
yards themselves are not low and wet. High and dry 
quarters, proper wind-breaks, and shelters from the 
long rains will usually keep the flocks free from this 
scourge. Suppose we put it that the requisites for 
success with turkeys are, first, good stock, second, 
good cooping and care, and third, correct feeding. 
Correct feeding is really of more importance than 
shelter, for turkeys, but it is placed third, because in 
the natural order of things, we look first to the stock, 
afterward to its shelter, and still later to its feed. 

What is good breeding stock, among turkeys? Only 
birds that have full vigor, sufficient age, and non -re- 
lationship between male and female, can be regarded 
as first-class breeding stock, if we consider merely 
how we can raise the most youngsters. Were we 
considering fancy points, also, the non -relationship 



130 

clause might be somewhat modified. The drift of 
circumstance far too often decides the character of the 
breeding stock. At early holiday time the early 
turkeys are salable at a fair price, the late ones un- 
salable at any price. The temptation is to sell the 
good ones, and let the later ones furnish the breeding 
stock for the following year. This stock will not 
have one of the three points named as requisites ! It 
will not have age, maturity, nor vigor, and it will al- 
most certainly be related stock. The breeders should be 
certainly one year old, while if two or three years old* 
they will be better layers, more vigorous., and more 
easily handled, if the owner has previously done 
her part. largest size is not important, though small 
birds should always be avoided. Medium to good 
size for hens, and medium size, with extreme vigor for 
the male, is the best choice. 

Turkey rearing is so universally the business of the 
women members of the family, that turkey hens 
are likely to be more or less tame. But this depends 
largely on how long they and their young are fed. It 
is quite important that the hens should be tame, as 
they are neither so likely to range so far, nor to nest in 
out-of-the-way places. I should prefer, for breeders, 
birds that had been raised with common hens, with a 
near-by range of their own, just a little aloof from 
that of the general stock of poultry. Such hens will 
lay in any barrels which you may provide in near-by 
but sheltered places, and will endure handling, as the 
bird raised with wider range may never come to do. 

The laying and hatching seasons will fully test } T our 
previous care in many directions. If a turkey hen 
has stolen her nest, she can usually be moved, with 
proper care, to an enclosed nest, to which she must be 
closely confined for two or three days. Fifteen eggs 



131 

are a fair average number for her to cover. She must 
be fed regularly, and furnished with a good dust -bath, 
which is to be kept dry. The practice of raising two 
clutches a season, one very early in Spring, the other 
hatched at Mid -summer, or later, may be greatly im- 
proved upon. It is far better to confine the hen for a 
few days when she first wants to sit. She will then 
begin laying again at once, and hatch her second 
clutch of eggs, the first ones being given to hens. All 
the birds thus brought off will be large enough for 
sale at holiday time, and they are likely to be more in 
number, than with Mid -summer hatching. 

Among those who succeed, there is much diver- 
sity of opinion as to cooping. Somehow, the young 
poults must be kept dry, as much dampness during 
the first few weeks means sure death to them. All 
agree that close confinement is almost as sure to be 
fatal as the dampness closely connected with free 
range. It remains, therefore, to follow some plan of 
compromise. Some care-takers confine the young 
merely in a triangle of boards, for a week or two, 
leaving the mother free. Others confine the mother 
in a roomy, airy coop, letting the poults range freely 
whenever it is dry. By this latter plan, one has weather 
conditions under better control. But fresh air must 
be insisted upon. If a coop is to be used, only the 
roof and the side next the prevailing wind and rain 
should be solid. The others may be of lath, or of 
wire net. Absolute cleanliness is the price of success, 
and the coops must be moved often. 

The remaining factor of success, and a very impor- 
tant one, is judgment in proper balancing of foods. 
This is a point upon which, so far as I know, no writer 
has yet touched definitely, as regards their effects 



132 

upon the bowels. If the effects of conditions and 
foods upon the bowels are important things to study 
in connection with the care of the common hen, much 
more is this the case when we consider young turkeys. 
For the young turkey is, perhaps, the most delicate, 
and the most susceptible to bowel derangement, on 
slight provocation, of all birds commonly raised. It 
is almost universal for those who give directions for 
raising young turkeys, to recommend feeding hard- 
boiled eggs. Yet I have not the shadow of a doubt 
that the hard-boiled egg is responsible for half the 
failures in rearing very young poultry, especially 
turkeys. Hard-boiled egg is an excellent thing, if 
properly used. We always use eggs, if we have them 
to spare. But egg, alone, is both too concentrated, and 
too constipating (constipating because concentrated, 
doubtless,) to be used as a steady diet, for any length 
of time. Balance it properly with foods of opposite 
characteristics, that is, foods bulky and laxative, and 
it is both safe and good. 

IyOok at the three foods very commonly used for 
young turkeys — sour milk curds, hard-boiled eggs, 
and white bread ! Every one of them is constipating, 
not one of them has bulk. Is it any wonder that the 
young poults die if they do not have absolutely free 
range? The free range and the bulky green stuff which 
it affords them are their only salvation from the ignorant 
and untender mercies of their feeder. Do not consider 
this as in any sense an objection to the food mention- 
ed. It is by no means intended to be such. But it is 
a plea that judgment be used in balancing these foods 
with such laxatives as scalded bran, or any available 
green stuff, so that they shall form a common -sense 
dietary for the young stock. The same broad rule of 



133 

feeding- applies to the human family, and to the 
birds and animals under our care. Concentrated 
foods, usually highly nutritive, are also, usually, con- 
stipating. They must be balanced with bulky and 
laxative foods. It is a simple, general principle, easy 
to apply, and by it any woman may become a success- 
ful feeder of young stock, even in a line of work new 
and untried. 

There is some objection to the free use of bran, 
for delicate stock, on account of its being too coarse 
and hard, too decidedly laxative. There is also some 
force in this objection ; but its force is mainly lost if 
the bran be always scalded. Better than bran alone, 
however, is a mixture of part bran and part shorts. 
This shorts is from the layer of the wheat kernel next 
the bran. In characteristics and quality, it stands 
between bran and fine flour. Used in connection with 
bran, and other ground grains, it is almost a price- 
less food for young stock of every sort. If, for any 
reason, turkey poults must be raised is semi-confine- 
ment, this judgment as to the proper balancing of 
foods becomes an invaluable aid in their rearing. In 
the lack of other available material, green food will 
always suffice for this purpose. L,awn clippings and 
fresh young clover are best among these. One woman 
tells me that she raised a brood of young turkeys 
without loss, and by hand, up to six weeks of age, in 
an upstairs room, where they never saw the ground. 
The point upon which her success turned was a free 
and continuous supply of finely -cut fresh grass. This 
formed, really, the greater part of their food. 

Doubtless it will seem almost iconoclasm to mention 
anything out of the regular order as being good for 
young turkeys. It is a fact, however, that fine bone, 



134 

or granulated bone, makes an excellent addition to 
their feed. It adds to the size of the frame, and to 
vigor; therefore, to weight, and selling value. There 
are those, also, who contend that it is a good balance 
to the too laxative effect of bran and too much green 
food. Experienced turkey raisers are careful not to 
feed new corn in the Fall, claiming that it causes 
bowel trouble. Possibly this is because it is still 
somewhat milky, and rather in the nature of a green 
food. This view is borne out by the fact that the use 
of half new corn and half old, together, has been 
found perfectly safe, even by those who could not use 
the new alone. Rhode Island growers use white 
northern flint corn, to give the fine flavor for which 
their fattened turkeys are famous. 

While there is an occasional period when the 
market takes large birds, it is a fact that medium - 
sized and well -fattened specimens sell most easily, 
and bring the best prices , on the whole. This is a 
chief reason for the selection of moderate -sized birds 
as breeding stock. The fattening period in the Fall 
is sometimes found to be a critical one, especially by 
those who try to bring them through it in confine- 
ment. This they will not bear, even for a period of 
three weeks. It is much better to feed them liberally 
while on range for the last six weeks or two months. 
During late Summer, when insects are plentiful, a 
feed at night to bring them home and send them to 
roost with well -filled crops, is all that is needed. 
When the insect supply fails, and the sharpening 
weather brings sharpening appetites, increase the food 
supply up to a liberal ration, and toward the last let 
it be all the whole corn they will eat. If they have 
attained proper maturity, by reason of early hatching, 




BRONZE TURKEYS. 



137 

they will fatten easily and well. This being the case, 
you can afford to send them by express, on the Monday 
before Thanksgiving, to a commission man whom you 
know to be reliable. Then, if there is anything to be 
made out of their extra plumpness, extra quality, and 
extra assorting as to size in packages, it will come to 
you, and not to the middle-man. Only make sure 
that your commission man is reliable, and just this 
extra money may be enough to pay the season's ex- 
penses ! 




SQUABS FOR POCKET-MONEY. 



^^^ ROBABLY there is not in the world to-day 
! ^^ an industry more interesting to women and 
i |B^/ children than the rearing of pigeons. This, 
with reference to the birds themselves. If 
we add to this the affirmation that squab rearing is as 
remunerative as any legitimate business known, and 
that, compared with poultry, the profit is greater 
while the work is less, it will be plain that here is 
something demanding the attention and stud}^ of the 
woman in search of pocket-money. Here, too, in- 
telligence, quick observation, and close attention to 
detail count so largely toward profits that the bright 
woman can out -strip all competitors. 

Little things make up the entire sum of the profits 
on pigeons ; yet the littles count up so fast that little 
losses are fatally cumulative; little feed bills startling 
in aggregates, but little profits also almost incredible 
when rolled up into the totals of a carefully -scanned, 
well-conducted business. A squab costs six cents to 
raise; if of third grade, its gross return niaj' be but 
ten cents. On the other hand, with the same cost, 
the gross returns may be twenty -five cents or more, if 
the squab grades as first class. These are ordinary 
market figures. Of some of the possibilities, I will 
say a word later. 

The unintelligent, the unobservant, and the careless 



139 




might about as well throw money into the street, as 
to invest it in pigeons with a view to squab raising. 
The statements here made are not true for them, but 

rather the rankest un- 
truth. The shrewd will 
at once to ques- 
as to housing, 
and intelligent 
The pigeonry- 
be the first 
pebpbr, one day-old. thought, as the birds 

must not only be confined usually, but confined under 
such conditions as to keep them in perfect health and 
thrift. It is safest, of course, to practice on a small 
number; yet, if shelters must be built, the propor- 
tionate cost will be so large at first, as to seem to 
preclude all thought of profit. The average person 
not used to business will persist in considering capital 
invested as a part of the running expenses, and insist 
on the flocks paying for it at once. This is not good 
business shrewdness. 
However, an old 
barn, if available, 
may furnish fair 
shelter for a begin 1 
ning, and I consider 
that the parents who 
do not give their 
children a chance to squeakers, ten days old. 

learn this fascinating and profitable occupation have 
done less than their duty. That is, of course, where 
the conditions are favorable ; and where are they not 
favorable, on the farm or in the village suburb? It 
may be objected that the markets are not in these 




140 




SQUEALERS, THREE WEEKS OLD. 

places. Possibly not, but what of that ? Home 
markets can be made; and the main point at this 
time is not profit, but education in a line of work 
that can be made profitable as soon as the learner has 
to hustle for himself. The "know-how" of profit- 
able lines of work is better than a fortune in hand to 
any boy or girl. 

The shelters for squab breeders should not be too 
cold, although the experienced can raise them in al- 
most any old shell of a building, as far north as New 
York City. The fittings are only nests, perches, and 
drinking and bathing fountains, a space of two square 
feet of floor being counted to each bird, with never 
less than twice as much room in the flight j^ards, in 
the open air. The flight spaces are best enclosed by 



141 

inch -mesh wire net, as this excludes sparrows, which 
are arrant thieves and fighters. The netting usually 
runs overhead, to the highest point of the roof. 

By far the neatest fashion in nest building, is the 
tier upon tier of veritable pigeon-holes, which remind 
us of our desks first, and may give us, a minute later, 
the first notion we ever had of the derivation of the 
word " pigeon-holes " as applied to such divisions. 
A movable bottom, something like the snow end of a 
snow -shovel, is slipped into the bottom of each di- 
vision, the strip across the front confining the nesting 
material, and preventing eggs from rolling out; these 
can be slipped out for cleaning or white -washing. 
Other nests consist of mere hollows in the bottom of 
the divisions. Still others, more expensive, and con- 
sidered the best, are earthen pans, four inches deep 
and nine inches wide. The largest pigeonry I have 
seen, carrying thousands of breeders, (and a most 
successful one) has detached rtests, cubes in form, 
about twelve inches each way, open at the back, and 
also in front except for a four-inch strip at the bot- 
tom. These nests were hung against the wall, and 
could be instantly removed and immersed in a tub of 
whitewash, at any convenient time. Two nests are 
necessary for each pair, as the birds lay again before 
the young are ready for market. The nesting material 
is preferably tobacco stems in Summer, while salt hay 
is much used in cold weather. Straw furnishes a 
breeding place for lice, and is not used by the ex- 
perienced. The birds build for themselves when 
material is accessible. Some handlers of pigeons 
provide no nesting material. 

City markets never cease demanding better products 
in every line. Will you provide what the majority 



142 

offer, or shall your pigeonry give the market birds 
twice and thrice as good as the ordinary, at a corre- 
sponding increase in selling value? As you answer 
this, you answer the main question as to what your 
profits shall be. It will cost you more for your first 
instalment of breeders, but from these you can en- 
large, raising your own to increase your workers. 
The squabs which the general market now gets, will 
run, possibly, from half a pound to three-quarters 
each. The right kind of a bird may double these 
weights. The Runts are large, fine birds, but poor 
mothers. The Homers are good breeders and mothers. 
I think most of the commercial raisers use the Homer 
for half of the blood, but they despise the Runt. Per- 
haps she is despicable, but she can give of her best 
qualities to a cross. The Runt -Homer cross, using 
the Homer for the mother, gives a good squab; a 
cross of the progeny with Homer is a still further 
improvement. Then more Runt blood can be intro- 
duced. Squabs of this breeding are snapped up so 
quick that the general market never sees them at all. 

The bath is a necessity to the adults, and may be 
given twice a week in Winter, and every day in Sum- 
mer. A quiet manner is a great help in one's work 
among the birds, and it is well to let one person do 
the work regularly. Birds must be mated properly, 
as when the mating is made, it holds for life. One 
person can care for enough birds to bring in an income 
of $1,500. The feeding can not but be an important 
item, as upon this may depend the health of the 
breeders, the grade of the squabs, and, therefore, the 
profits. Proper feeding is not all, but it is much. 
Still, there are many grains which can be used, a 
chief point being that they must not be new. Wheat, 



143 

cracked corn, hulled oats, millet, and kaffir corn, 
hemp, and peas are among the much -used feeds. 
Millet is excellent, wheat not an unmixed blessing, 
hemp mostly an appetizer to be used sparingly. If 
only one grain were available, perhaps cracked corn 
would come nearest to the requirements. The old 
birds are fed on a clean, sanded floor, and they feed 
the squabs as nature dictates. Hence, as is the 
mother, (as breeder and feeder) so we get many or 
few, good or poor squabs, as a rule. Salt is con- 
sidered a necessary condiment, some using salt cod- 
fish in the pens. One hundred pairs may eat a whole 
one in three or four days. 

Prices vary at different seasons. The last time I 
inquired, No. 1 squabs were bringing twenty -four 
cents; No. 2, nineteen cents; No. 3, ten cents. The 
color and plumpness are chief factors in determining 
grading, and grading has a tremendous effect on the 
profits. Wheat, it is said, tends.to make dark squabs, 
and is, therefore, looked upon with suspicion, at least. 
The color will mostly depend, however, on the care 
with which breeders are selected. Light -colored 
squabs are demanded. To get these, select birds 
with light bills and feet. Dark -legged birds are 
likely to produce dark squabs, but dark feathers need 
not throw out a breeder, if feet and bill are all right. 
For best prices, most markets ask that these fascinat- 
ing birds be killed, which is done in much the same 
way as with poultry. Besides the loss in weight 
which the squabs suffer in transit, which is large, the 
market offers five cents less per pair for the live birds. 
In a business of littles, this counts strongly. I think 
the Boston market is a little better than others for live 



144 

squabs. Add to this necessity for killing that the 
work is very dirty, and you have the worst that can 
be said about squab raising. 

The great difficulties, and particularly so to the be- 
ginner, are invasions of lice and rats, diarrhea; as 
well as over -abundance of unmated birds, which 
must always be carried at a loss. If a bird dies, the 
unobservant care-taker may feed its mate at a loss for 
months. The live, observant worker will notice the 
unmated bird, and strive to provide ic with a new 
mate. Kvery loss counts double, in the absence of 
one bird and the uselessness of the other of the pair. 
Ivice are not a great burden if sufficient care is taken. 
Rats are a constant menace, and diarrhea is controlled 
largely by care as to feeding. 

Pigeon possibilities and pigeon averages are as far 
apart as those of any known business, possibly. The 
usual prices and weights have been noticed, but there 
are breeders who are rearing squabs to weigh three 
and occasionally three and one -half pounds to the 
pair. Such birds have brought $6 and $7 per dozen. 
One man whom I know made, last year, clear, over 
thirty -five per cent on the cost, including interest on 
plant. This, too, a man whose business is not squab 
raising. This is but his recreation. One woman was 
making at the rate of $400 a year within a year of first 
taking up the work. I know one breeder of squabs, 
of exceptional quickness and grasp of work, who 
cares for over 2,000 pairs of birds and carries on a 
large regular business in another line throughout the 
Summer months, or probably for eight months of the 
year. 




HOMING PIGEONS. 



POCKET-MONEY POSSIBILITIES. 



SINCE these notes were begun, I have received 
many letters from women anxious to go into 
the poultry business. Three or four might 
be regarded as typical of the whole. One 
was from a widow, with six small children, and un- 
able to make a living for them. She had $200 in 
money, and absolutely nothing else but her own ef- 
forts to depend upon. A second was from a woman 
with an aged father to support, who, according to her 
own story, had reached a point where she did not 
know where to turn, and who was so poor that she 
apologized for not enclosing a stamp, saying that she 
really had to take care of every penny. A third was 
from an office girl, barely able to keep up under some 
chronic trouble. A fourth, from a woman owning 
large premises, which she wished to turn to account 
in some way. Apparently, not one of these knew 
anything about poultry raising. 

It will be noticed that only one of these four was 
in search of what, by any fairness, might be called 
pocket-money. What they wanted was actual liveli- 
hood. They had nothing to invest, but themselves, 
and unfortunately, this investment was needed else- 
where, in order to put bread in their mouths. I be- 
lieve it to be possible for a bright and intelligent 



148 

woman, who is able to work reasonably hard, to 
borrow money enough to start with, and if need be, 
to live on for a year, and still come out ahead. But I 
would certainly not dare advise any one of whom I 
know nothing to do this, and I would most earnestly 
commend all such to study most faithfully the first 
two chapters of these notes. There is no doubt that 
the rosy ideas about poultry raising which are spread 
broadcast, and which represent the business as re- 
quiring no capital, or almost none, are responsible 
for this often pathetic rush toward poultry raising. 
But it must be remembered that where there is no 
money capital, the worker is, herself, the real capital, 
and the same capital can not be invested in two 
places at the same time. 

It is more especially to people having small pieces 
of land, or those on the farm, that pocket-money pos- 
sibilities open. We hear a great deal about the pov- 
erty of the poor, but after many years of experience 
among farming people, I am led to believe that there 
is more poverty in the line of deprivation on every 
side on a very large proportion of our farms, than 
there is among the actual poor. These last have 
times of starvation and nakedness, it is true, but when 
they have work they usually have money, and this 
money is never saved for possible future times of dis - 
tress, but goes for clothes and finery, pleasant foods, 
and low theatres. 

"The poor" seldom know of the week by week, 
month by month, year by year deprivations of thou- 
sands of women on the farm. To go without postage 
stamps, without finery, without books, without extra 
niceties of food which must be purchased, without 



149 

pretty furniture, without the great luxury of con- 
veniences, without the uplifting change and broaden- 
ing which travel affords, is a matter of course to an 
incredible proportion among farmers' wives. It is to 
these that I commend especially, the pocket-money 
possibilities of poultry. Their investments will be 
less, their successes greater, than those of any other 
class. They have already a beginning for a hold 
upon the business, in the fact that the poultry -money 
is usually considered theirs, and that they know some- 
thing of the work ; and I affirm that a thorough study 
of poultry in all its aspects, and a careful branching 
out may, in many hundreds of instances, open to 
them the possibility of gratifying all their hitherto 
unfulfilled longings, of gaining the things desired in- 
stead of believing themselves forever destined to be 
deprived of them. 

Perhaps the one thing most desired by mothers, the 
world over, in these modern days, is a good education 
for the children. This education may settle, while 
yet in their teens, the question whether these children 
are to be day laborers and servant maids, or are to 
tread the stately homes of cabinet officers in our capi- 
tal city. With the single exception of health, educa- 
tion is the one thing that counts above all else in 
fitting out any worker. It opens all doors ; and this 
education for the children, so earnestly desired, is one 
of the possibilities of pocket-money poultry. 

The means of travel are sometimes sighed for, but 
seldom expected, scarcely, even in the beautiful future 
" when our ship comes in," But it is easily within 
pocket-money possibilities, for with a little money, 
one may travel a little, and with much money to 



150 

spare, one may travel far. This travel but adds to 
pocket-money possibilities in poultry, for she who is 
intelligent enough to raise poultry is intelligent enough 
to learn wherever she goes, and she may make her 
travel count for increase, rather than depletion of 
pocket-money, by visiting successful poultry plants, 
and city commission houses on her way to the relative 
to be visited, to the great library she would see, or to 
the mountains or shore. 

It may be objected, with some apparent force, that 
the woman on the farm has already invested herself 
in the work of the home, and that she will have no 
time to push the poultry business. This is largely 
true. But she will always find time to neglect some 
of the things that can be neglected for the sake of 
earning a little money all her own. Better than this, 
however, if she study the question well, and study to 
interest her children, and to teach them all that she 
learns about it, they will help earn their larger educa- 
tion while gaining an education just at home, which 
will not only fit them for money making, but will 
make them much better all-around people, when they 
have reached maturity. The right kind of a mother, 
unless her handicaps be too great, has things right in 
her own hands, if she will but realize it. 

While it is a well-known fact that farmers are 
better read, as a whole, than any other class of peo- 
ple — that is, their wives and daughters are — I think 
it is also true that nowhere is the lack of books, and 
more books, so felt as on the farm. There is more 
time for reading, and less chance to buy the cheap 
books now so plentiful in the large cities. But books, 
too, books in plenty, books that will aid mightily in 



151 

the family education, are a part of the possibilities of 
pocket-money poultry. And books are now so much 
cheaper than formerly, that it will take only a few 
dollars of profit on the poultry to supply this crying 
need in many homes. In the great cities at holiday 
time, scores of titles of standard books, cloth bound, 
can be bought at prices ranging from eleven to thirty 
cents. 



>V 



^. 






<ir 



M 






POCKET-MONEY POINTERS. 



♦flTN ORDER to be fully effective, perhaps the 
!*$ assertions of the preceding chapter concern - 
II ing pocket-money possibilities, demand a few 
"pointers," as to ways of realizing those 
possibilities. I find that the women of the country 
are taking a very large interest in the poultry schools 
so lately established here. For those who are free to 
leave home, and who, not knowing much about poul- 
try, wish to try their hand at it, there is probably no 
better investment of the first $50 than a course in a 
poultry school. A few weeks' time will cover it, and 
it is pretty sure to save the loss of many times $50, 
through blunders. The Winter season, when there is 
not much doing, is usually selected for these brief 
courses, and they are crowded full of practical teach- 
ing and practical work. 

There ma3^ be more, too, in this study, than appears 
on the surface. More than the mere learning how to 
take care of the fowls. There are scores of able 
women «in farm homes and small towns, who need 
only a fillip, as it were, to set them doing good work, 
and earning money in many a practical line. Perhaps 
they haven't sufficient confidence in themselves, and, 
not having been trained, they do not know just how 
to take hold of anything. The poultry schools offer 
an opening for them. There is likely to be good de- 



153 

mand for the first graduates from these schools in 
may different directions. Teachers, working part- 
ners, and lecturers will be wanted. All women can 
talk, and those who can learn to talk acceptably to 
the public, and who have practical experience behind 
them, can find frequent openings as lecturers on poul- 
try, before Farmers' Institutes. Perhaps it would be 
feasible, also, for the woman who delights in cookery, 
to work up, and push a lecture on cooking poultry, 
to use before granges and Farmers' Institutes. But 
these broad and inviting paths are not for the average 
woman, nor even for the average among the most able 
of women. For most women are busied in making 
homes, and in. those homes they must stay. But all 
who have some time at command may, perhaps, try 
the correspondence schools, toward which initiatory 
steps have lately been taken. The Pennsylvania 
Experiment Station, through its careful professor, 
George C. Watson, 'has opened a Poultry Corre- 
spondence Class, covering a line of thorough, practi- 
cal work. One who studies this course, and takes its 
examinations, should have an excellent foundation 
for beginning in the poultry business, especially where 
pocket-money is the only object. 

Full chapters have been devoted to the more com- 
mon divisions of the work, such as ordinary fowls, 
ducks and geese, and turkeys. The business in squabs 
is assuming such proportions, and is so promising, 
that it, also, has been thought worthy of a chapter to 
itself. Under certain special conditions, a line of 
work just coming to the front promises very good 
results. There is almost no literature on the subject; 
but with the demand for it, such literature will soon 
be furnished. The line of work referred to is the 



154 

rearing of pheasants. With the rapid increase of 
rich men among- us, there is a corresponding increase 
in the demand for stock which is distinctively 
"fancy." It has become a fad for rich men to own 
large tracts of land, and to stock them with every- 
thing rare and beautiful among animals and birds. 
Almost no one in this country knows anything about 
pheasant rearing, except a few men who act as mana- 
gers on such places. Yet there is a pretty good de- 
mand for birds to stock still other such places, and 
also to use for gunning purposes, for aristocratic 
clubs. I am told by one who rears pheasants by the 
thousand, that $36 a dozen is an average price for 
birds to supply this demand. 

I would not, by any means, urge any woman who 
may think she would like to try to raise these pecu - 
liarly taking little birds, to rush into pheasant rear- 
ing. The young are admittedly difficult to raise, and 
I do not think any one who did not fully understand 
how to raise common poultry would be successful in 
rearing young pheasants. But one who is thus 
grounded in the work, and who has either an ac- 
quaintance or a location among many men of means, 
might work up a very good business along this line. 
There are a good many varieties of pheasants, most 
of which are extremely beautiful. Moreover, the 
handsomer sorts are not always the most difficult to 
rear, as is so apt to be the case. The fact that the 
Silvers and the Japanese mate in pairs, and that most 
of the others take but four or five females to each 
male, renders the market for the males proportionately 
better than is the case with almost any other stock. 
Add to this the fact that the male is the one that al- 
ways wears the beautiful garment, and it will be seen 




PAIR AFRICAN GEESE. 



157 

that there will be no such difficulty in disposing of 
these males as one often meets in the case of domestic 
poultry, no matter how well bred. Perhaps the Silver 
and Golden Pheasants are the most common. Ring- 
necks are also comparatively plentiful, and are con- 
sidered among the most hardy. 

It might be thought impossible to raise birds so 
wild by nature, in anything like domestication, and 
with narrow range. But, strange to say, it is done 
right along, and some of them, in time, become al- 
most as tame as barnyard fowls. They must have 
covered runs, of fair size, but they are inured to all 
weathers, and need very little shelter. In one place, 
where pheasants are reared for the money there is in 
them, the shelters were nothing more than a few 
boards, so placed as to shed rain and storm a little. 

In the natural state, pheasants lay but few eggs. 
But if properly fed and managed, and the eggs taken 
away as laid, they will lay forty to fifty eggs each, 
occasionally getting as high even as sixty. The great 
difficulty lies in rearing the young up to twelve weeks 
of age. Bantam hens, or the lightest -weight Leg- 
horns or Games, are used for hatching the eggs, the 
bantams being preferred. They will cover about nine 
eggs. A chief difficulty seems to lie in the feeding. 
One who had often lost sixty per cent of the young, 
says that with the use of a patent cooked food for the 
first few weeks, the loss dropped to ten per cent. 
With proper feed, I do not think they are so much 
more difficult to raise than turkeys. They need the 
same watchful care and good judgment. In the 
Winter they may be fed mostly on cracked corn; 
toward Spring, some soft feed is used, mixed with 
potatoes, barley meal, and a very little meat. 



158 

While Belgian Hares do not properly come under 
the head of poultry, they are so apt to be considered 
with it, and to meet the needs of the same class of 
people in search of pocket-money occupations, that a 
few words may not be out of place here. If one has, 
or can make a market for them, and possesses or can 
learn the secret of their rearing, there is no doubt 
that there is good pocket-money in them. It costs 
very little to start with them, and a pair or two, 
bought for the children's delight, may be the means 
of laying the foundation for pockets full of money 
later. I would urge that all who wish to try their 
hand at raising hares, should learn as much as possi- 
ble about them, before investing much. If for no 
other reason, in thus studying the subject, one often 
finds that which seemed an attraction, to be really a 
very repulsive thing ; while sometimes the reverse is 
the case. Study of any subject we would take up, is 
always the best initial investment; for, always, and 
everywhere, knowledge is power. Advance knowl- 
edge saves one from foolish investment, from errors of 
working innumerable, from losses uncounted, and 
often, — a very important point to most folks, — from 
becoming a laughing-stock for the whole neighbor- 
hood. 



5S 



*. 



SUPPLEMENTARY FOOD SUPPLIES. 



MHIIyH the grains, whole and ground, form 
the basis of food supply for all varieties 
of domestic fowl, it is scarcely possible 
to keep the birds in thrift without what 
I have termed " supplementaries". Indispensable 
among these are grit, charcoal, meat of some sort, and 
green food or its dry substitute. Fowls at large may, 
however, get along without the charcoal, and range 
will relieve the care-taker from- the laborious suppl- 
ing of green food. In the Summer, too, the birds may 
secure their own supplies of meat, or an approximation 
toward their needs in that line. In Winter all the 
supplementaries named are truly indispensable, and 
this is true during the whole year for yarded stock. 

There is also another set of what, for want of a better 
term, may come under the head of "supplementary 
foods" . These are the various prepared, cooked, or con - 
dimented foods, and I might include also, stale bread, 
crackers, and popcorn. I mention these because some 
may have opportunity to secure them at a very low 
rate, yet not realize that they might take the place of 
other foods. One of the most frequent questions that 
comes to an Institute lecturer is, What do you feed?" 
This is a much harder question for a shrewd worker to 
answer, than for one less expert. This is because the 
sails are always trimmed to the breeze then blowing. 



160 

In other words, the feed is seldom the same two seasons 
in succession. Summer and Winter feeds differ be- 
cause of season, and the rations may vary with the 
prices of farm products and manufacturers' supplies. 
The grains which are "cheapest" in money paid out 
are not always chosen ; but rather those cheapest 
when the amount of the precious protein which they 
contain is considered. If N. P. linseed meal is com- 
paratively low in price, it will be used as freely as is 
safe, because it is about one -third protein, and will 
make up for the lack of it in corn, and also save part 
of the meat bill. If milk is very cheap, or a waste 
product, large quantities of curd will be used, for this, 
also, is rich in protein. And, while the shrewd poultry 
feeder will study continuously to keep down the feed 
bills, there will never be niggardliness when the good 
of the birds demands expenditure. 

First among supplementary supplies I place grit- 
You may argue that this is not a food supply at all ; 
but it certainly accompanies the food as far as the 
gizzard, and plays a most important part in the assimi- 
lation of food, without which no bird can thrive. 
Those places where grit is not needed (not merely de- 
sirable but a necessity to the best thrift of the flocks) 
are very few. And I am fully convinced that the lack 
of a good sharp grit in abundant supply is the cause of 
much of the loss of young chicks on our farms, espe- 
cially where fowls have been raised for many } T ears. 
This is a part of the reason why the birds do better on 
fresh ground; such " grit " as is natural to the place 
being found on the newer range. Seldom, indeed, 
does it get any of the credit for improved thrift, how- 
ever. 



161 

For yarded fowls I am inclined to place green food, 
or its dry substitute, next to grit in importance among 
supplementary foods. Cabbage is excellent, indeed 
scarcely excelled by anything except fresh clipped 
grass or clover, so far as the birds are concerned. But 
it has a few disadvantages ; it is not so readily kept 
through all seasons as is clover, and finicky customers 
sometimes complain that the eggs are ill -flavored, 
when cabbage is used. Customers — buyers of our 
products — must be humored. One poultry raiser found 
a whole set of customers nauseated (in imagination) 
because it came out that horse meat was fed to the 
birds. Though cheap and good, this meat had to be 
discarded. Customers are monarchs, so long as they 
pay promptly and well; let us not forget this axiom. 
Cut clovers and clover meals come next to cabbage as 
important elements of the daily rations, and mangel 
wurzels are good for thrift, but have little influence on 
the egg yield. Mangels and the dry clovers (steamed) 
may be used in conjunction with excellent results. 
As a digestive and absorbent of unhealthful gases, 
charcoal ranks high. I believe it is better to let the 
birds use it as appetite dictates than to mix it with the 
food. Usually they eat it greedily, especially when 
young. But, as charcoal doesn't agree with all 
stomachs in the human family, it may also be that 
some birds are better without it. 

Meat meals and cut bone, while so necessary to egg 
production and so helpful to the growth of the chicks 
when properly and carefully fed, are placed after those 
supplies already named for this reason, all those pre- 
ceding it have a distinct value as corrective, and aids- 
to health. The meats, on the contrary, though very 
valuable, must be carefully used or they become a det- 



162 

riment to health. It does not take a very long: course 
of over -feeding with meat to ruin the digestive appara- 
tus of any fowl. Slight indigestion first appears, in- 
creasing later in frequency and severity of attack. 
After a few weeks, the birds die, and the livers are 
found enlarged, or vari -colored. The best corrective 
to super -abundant meat in the diet, is abundance o 
green, bulky food also. In the early stages of indi- 
gestion, a few days' run on full range will apparently 
cure a yarded bird. But the difficulty is only too apt 
to return upon the resuming of old conditions. 

There are "concentrated meals" which consist of 
grains, or meats, or both, with condiments to force 
still further the lagging egg supplies, when meat used 
alone seems to be failing its end. There is every 
variety of cooked and compounded ration of grain 
products. There are biscuits and cookies and corn 
cakes. There are " teeth " for the growing chicks; 
made, doubtless, of bone, shells, etc. They may all be 
good enough in their place, but are not always a wise 
dependence, and they are always a source of unneces- 
sary expense. The various mixed and cooked grains 
are mainly good, but you can save considerable money 
by learning to do this compounding yourself. Some 
of these prepared foods come as high as six cents a 
pound, a price no poultry raiser can afford to pa3 7 for 
foods. They are certainly a help (some of them, at 
least) in rearing chicks, for those who do not under- 
stand preparing food ; but they have little place in the 
rations of those who would rear " pocket -monej- 
poultry", because they swell the feed bills unduly. 
For those who are in poultry for mere pleasure, or for 
the fancier who has a sure market at high rates, they 
are a good reliance. 



163 

A good general rule to follow is to use no food of 
which you do not know the components. This will 
make you work and trouble sometimes, but will save 
you much money in the end. Why should you pay more 
(for instance) for oats and corn in a dealer's mixture 
than you pay in open market? Get the components, 
pay fair prices, and mix them yourself if you want 
mixtures. Stale bread, crackers, and popcorn are ex- 
cellent foods to use in connection with ordinary grains, 
when they can be had at a low rate. But it is wise to 
make close calculations as to how far a barrel of bread 
will go, before deciding that it is cheap. Cooked foods 
of any sort will help increase the percentage of chicks 
brought to maturity ; but it is always to be remem- 
bered that free use of them will decrease the digestive 
capacity of the birds, rendering them less capable of 
digesting the hard grains uncooked. I have known of 
stale bread being sold at thirty -five cents a barrel. 
At a rough guess I should say that a barrel might con- 
tain 100 pounds; this would certainly be cheap feed. 
But bread is uncertain stuff to store, unless one knows 
how to handle it. If kept for any length of time in a 
damp place, it moulds; if in a dry place, it becomes 
almost as hard as stone. When very dry, it should be 
ground, as it is difficult to soak it sufficiently without 
getting it pasty. As good chicks as we ever grew were 
raised almost exclusively on crackers and wheat, but 
they had full range, and could supply themselves with 
the dainties of the season. 

Referring once more to clover, let me urge all who 
rear chicks or keep poultry for eggs to study and ex- 
periment till they are familiar with all that clover may 
do for their flocks. It is always a cheap feed, always a 
wholesome feed, always quite near the best ratio in its 



164 

solid constituents. More than that, by the addition of 
a little meat, clover, and the oft -despised but allur- 
ingly cheap corn, will form a good egg ration. This 
one fact alone would be a very strong argument for a 
trial of its merits. On the farms, clover can be used 
without cutting, though at considerable waste. Or, if 
the size of the flocks warrants it, a clover mill can be 
bought, and the whole plant turned to account, in- 
stead of merely the fine leaves and heads. Second - 
growth clover, fine of stalk, cuts and uses to better 
advantage than other, and green -cured is as much 
better than weather -browned or over -ripe hay for 
poultry as for all other stock. Second -crop clover is 
said to be affected at times with a fungus which may 
salivate, but I have not known of any case in which it 
made trouble with poultry. So strongly do I favor 
the use of clover for poultry that I feel that I owe it 
an apology for classing it with supplementaries. 







PAIR WHITE WYANDOTS. 



THE POSSIBLE VALUE OF CAPON- 

IZING. 



/^^HE heading to this chapter implies a question 

/ I as to the acual value of caponizing, which is 

^^|^ sure to raise an immediate counter -question 

in the mind of the reader. What! Is not 

the enormous value of caponizing fully admitted 

everywhere? If we stop to run over in our minds the 

sources of the information heretofore given to the 

public concerning capons, we shall realize that these 

have been almost wholly the dealers in caponizing 

tools. Such can hardly be expected, under ordinary 

conditions of human nature, to' speak without bias. 

In considering our subject, we shall be brought face to 
fece with two questions : First, Will capons pay? When 
this is settled, even though it be in the affirmative, we 
shall still have to ask, Does caponizing pay? And 
this may, under certain circumstances, find a negative 
answer. Some careful experiments have shown that 
the increase in weight of capons is by no means so 
great as the public generally has been lead to believe. 
Lot after lot, a portion of .each of which were capon - 
ized, and brought on beside the rest in the natural 
state, have shown that it takes the capons several 
months to sufficiently recover from the operation to 
catch up with their former mates in size, and that they 
seldom reach more than from half a pound to a pound 



168 

greater weight than uncaponized birds, of the same 
lots and breeds. The gain in price over uncaponized 
birds of the same age is a very tangible thing. The 
price of the capon is often double that of the other, 
and at times treble, while the uncaponized bird is at 
times barely salable, even at the lowest price. This 
sounds like a strong enough argument for the capon, 
but there are a good many things to be said which 
strengthen the other side of the question. To be sure, 
it is an advantage to place on the market twelve 
pounds of juicy, tender flesh, in the place of per- 
haps eleven pounds of dry and tasteless meat. But 
selling price is not the only thing to be considered. 

The cost of production is one of the essential factors 
in the study of the question of profit and loss. Capons 
have to be kept ten months. It will cost as much to 
produce one eleven -pound capon, as to produce two or 
three young chicks of the same combined weight, per- 
haps more. It is a question whether the flesh of the 
capon is really better than the flesh of these younger 
chicks. My own experience and tastes would lead 
me to say that it is not so good. The younger chicks, 
if produced at the right time of the year, will bring as 
much per pound as the capon, to say the least. It is 
a question, therefore, which may be fairly put, whether 
the advantage of capouizing is a real, so much as an 
imaginar3', one. It is because women are likely to be 
led off into side tracks and specialties like this, that 
this chapter is given place. Women are, as a rule, 
familiar with the anatomy of the fowl ; they know 
themselves to be deft -fingered ; and if thej T have seen 
the price lists of capon sales, they are quite likel3 r to 
think that here is a chance to make some money rather 
easily, if they can but overcome their natural shrink- 
ing at giving pain. 



169 

It is not often necessary to do the actual work of 
caponizing for one's self. In districts near the best 
markets, it is generally possible to find professional 
caponizers who go about the country doing this work 
rapidly and safely, at a cost of, perhaps, three cents a 
head. Three cents a head is certainly not enough to 
pay any women for doing violence to her finer feelings 
by such work. Nor will it ever pay, in all senses of 
the word, to go deliberately into a branch of the poul- 
try business which necessitates the infliction of the 
maximum amount of pain upon living subjects. There 
are other lines of poultry work, which, if carefullj 7 
worked up, will pay as well, and be far more pleasant. 
Still, as there may be some who will still believe that 
caponizing is a most profitable line of work ; and as 
on farms, where feed is cheap, Summer chicks may 
be brought on in this way to a good degree of money 
profit, we may give the subject a little further special 
consideration. 

There is a best time to make capons, a best size of 
bird to operate on, a best set of tools to use There 
is, also, a difference in breeds. The Indian Game, a 
very close -feathered and hard -fleshed fowl, is difficult 
to operate upon. The softer, looser-built birds make 
the easiest subjects. The usual size to operate upon 
is from one -and -a -half to two-and-a-half pounds. 
But, inasmuch as the larger birds do not seem to feel 
the operation so much, unless the combs have devel- 
oped, it is desirable to take them at not less than two 
pounds' weight. The best tools (at least we may sup- 
pose they are the best, as they are generally preferred 
by professional operators) are known as the old Chinese 
tools. For the loops by which the final operation is 
performed, nothing has yet been found preferable to 



170 

horse hair. Perhaps the most profitable time to make 
capons is that which will bring them into the market 
in February, or later, as prices rise about this time, 
and continue rising until capons are out of the market 
for the season. Instances are on record of capons 
bringing thirty and forty cents a pound in July. The 
large birds are the desirable ones, but they should not 
be kept beyond the age^of ten or eleven months, as the 
flesh changes after this period. 

The fowls need to be prepared for caponizing in a 
way somewhat similar to that in vogue when they are 
to be killed. But in the case of the bird to be capon - 
ized, both food and water are withheld for twenty - 
four to thirty -six hours; for for forty -eight hours, if 
the work is all to be done from one side. This fasting 
empties the bowels, and relieves the volume of blood 
in the veins and arteries. This is an important point, 
for though the operation is a simple one, when deft- 
ness and skill have been attained, the slightest punct- 
ure of the artery which lies in immediate proximity 
to the testicle means the sudden and sure death of the 
subject. 

The appearance of the capon in market is certainly 
not attractive. Only the breast and back, a portion 
of the wings nearest the body, and the upper thighs 
are freed from feathers. The neck and saddle -feathers 
being large and fine, the tail small, the comb unde- 
veloped, and the head small, pointed, and somewhat 
feminine looking — these are marks whereb} T the intelli- 
gent purchaser may know that the birds offered are 
really capons. The capons are dry -picked, and the 
mouth, legs, and feet washed before shipment. They 
are sent undrawn to New York, and to some Boston 
dealers. 



171 

There is always question in considering the matter 
of learning caponizing, as to the possible rapidity 
with which one can work. While the novice might, 
and probably would, spend a half hour upon the first 
bird, and then possibly produce a slip, experts will do 
scores each hour during the whole day. One very 
sure and rapid worker caponized one bird per minute 
for three hours in succession; his day's work being 
450, of which not one per cent died. It is absolutely 
necessary to have good light, and for dark days, trials 
have been made of the head mirror, with reflecting 
light, such as physicians often use for examinations. 
Its use was found very satisfactory. 

Any one who is deft can learn to do this work by 
following the very clear instructions given in books 
of directions, to be variously procured. It is much 
better all around to use freshly -killed birds for the 
trial operation. Makers of caponizing tools furnish 
books with clear directions, and agricultural stations 
of some States give free demonstration lessons to any 
one within the State. The Rhode Island College gives 
lessons in caponizing, in connection with its poultry 
course, and also sends out, free, a book of instructions. 
The instruction at the school is given by one of the best 
experts in the country. Though it is said that the 
birds suffer little and recover very quickly., it is safe to 
assert that the first statement will not be true of the 
woman who attempts to learn the work. At the end 
of the first lesson she will be sick from head to foot — 
sick of the work, sick ot her bargain, sick of the whole 
chicken business. And it will be several days before 
her stomach recovers its normal tone. Dollars and 
cents do not pay for these things, even when pocket - 
monej^ seems a desperate necessity. 



OCT i889 



